Dear XXXX,

By now I hope you have heard the good news that former Club for Growth President Pat Toomey has decided to take on the vital task of running for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania against arch-RINO Arlen Specter. Of course, Pat’s departure leaves big shoes to fill, and that falls to me as the new president of the Club for Growth.

I am fully committed to making sure the Club for Growth continues to be the influential and effective organization that it has been through the years of Pat Toomey’s outstanding leadership.

I am proud to tell you that one of the first actions I have taken as President of this great organization is to announce the Club for Growth PAC’s endorsement of Pat Toomey’s Senate candidacy.

Click here to contribute to Pat Toomey’s Senate campaign today.

 

I have known Pat for a long time, and had the privilege of serving with him in Congress when I represented Indiana’s Second Congressional District. Pat and I stood together in Congress for economic conservatism, limited government, and personal freedom.

My time in business and in Congress has shown me how crucial it is that we elect the right kind of people to the House and Senate. We need to change the gene pool in Washington, and that is what the Club for Growth PAC does best.

And I cannot think of a more important race this election cycle than Pat Toomey’s candidacy for the U.S. Senate against the liberal “Republican” incumbent, Arlen Specter.

Specter must be replaced. He may call himself a Republican, but it’s awfully hard to tell. In fact, Arlen Specter is so liberal, Harry Reid and other Democratic leaders spent MONTHS trying to convince the Pennsylvania RINO to defect and switch parties.

If not for Arlen Specter — President Obama never would have been able to pass the wasteful boondoggle he is calling the “stimulus.” Sen. Specter spent years betraying economic conservatives, but his greatest betrayal came just two months ago when he voted with the Democrats to pass Barack Obama’s $800 billion stimulus. Senator Specter’s vote was the sixtieth vote the Democrats needed to avoid a Republican filibuster of the bill.

Click here to make your most generous contribution to Pat Toomey’s Senate campaign today.

 

Remember, Pat ran against Arlen Specter in 2004 and nearly won. We know from past experience that Specter will stop at nothing to keep his thirty-year political career intact.

He is already stooping to the same low-down dirty tricks this time around. Even before Pat announced his candidacy, Specter started running negative attack ads against Pat that contained a blatant lie. This duplicity was so egregious, Specter had to change the ad!

But unlike six years ago, Republicans in Pennsylvania are experiencing buyer’s remorse. Unlike six years ago, Pat is beating Specter in the polls, and Specter is running scared.

These are crucial times for our country. We need Pat Toomey in the Senate more than ever!

The power of the Club for Growth lies with you — our freedom-loving members who unite in the name of a great and noble cause. I hope you will join me in this next stage of the great fight for our fundamental liberties and in helping to elect Pat Toomey to the United States Senate.

I thank you in advance for your most generous contribution to Pat Toomey’s campaign today.

Click here to contribute to Pat Toomey for U.S. Senate today.

 

 

Best Regards,

Chris

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Chris Chocola
President, Club for Growth
2001 L Street, NW, Ste 600
Washington, DC 20036
PH: 202-955-5500

Kristen Soltis has posted some data that counters the theory that young voters are “far more libertarian on fiscal issues” or “that young Americans are largely ‘fiscally conservative, socially liberal.’” While the data is worrisome, Soltis offers some ideas:

So where should the Republican Party or conservative movement go from here?
There is a belief structure among young voters that is slightly in conflict with a core principle of the Republican Party – the belief that the free market trumps government. Young voters have a more positive view of government and are not as convinced that the free market provides better solutions than government.Yet on the issue of taxes, young voters do believe tax cuts can improve the economy, despite their uncertainty about whether or not tax cuts are the best option. If the Republican Party wants to win young voters in the future, an understanding of the ways that young voters view the economy is essential. Messaging that focuses on the need for less government and lower taxes is not likely to be as well received or convincing to this generation.

This isn’t to say these messages won’t work, to be sure. But the spectre of Big Government is not as frightening to young voters, nor is the devotion to the free market so prevalent. In order for the Republican Party to grow long-term, they must work to impact these belief structures and spend the effort convincing a new generation of the sorts of beliefs that are taken for granted among older cohorts.

Goldman has been posting numerous articles pertaining to Sarah Palin’s testimony at a federal hearing before Ken Salazar in Anchorage. The Wall Street Journal’s environmental blog construed her remarks as a moderation of “her stance on global warming, in a bid to accelerate development of Alaska’s natural-gas resources.” I do not arrive at the same conclusion after reading her prepared remarks. This excerpt from her testimony reveals, at least in my estimation, what could be an approach that satisfies both environmental hardliners and moderates.

Stopping domestic energy production of preferred fuels does not solve the issues associated with global warming and threatened or endangered species, but it can make them worse…Simply waiting for low-carbon-emitting renewable capacity to be large enough will mean that it will be too late to meet the mitigation goals for reducing [carbon dioxide] that will be required under most credible climate-change models…Meeting these goals will require a dramatic increase … to preferred available fuels, including natural gas, that have a very low carbon footprint….These available fuels are required to supply the nation’s energy needs during the transition to green energy alternatives.

I so happen to be the media director for Youth for Western Civilization — the organization that sponsored Tom Tancredo at UNC — at American University. YWC originated at American University. Its national president, Kevin DeAnna, is a current student there.

About a month ago, we featured Congressman Tancredo at AU. We drew about three hundred protesters, all of whom were respectful and silent. (Tancredo actually complimented the protesters on their respect, noting that things have gotten ugly in the past.) A brief account of that can be read here.

YWC thrives on dragging liberals into the light: we feature controversial speakers in order to draw attention to the issues surrouding the beauty of Western values. We feature Tancredo to speak of the realities surrounding assimilation and multiculturalism.

We like to think that we’ve struck a chord when we have wannabe-fascists shattering windows. So be mad at the leftists, but don’t be too mad: all this sort of tactic does is make our numbers swell and move those who witness it to the right.

I will note that Robert Spencer, the author of the Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam, is being brought to American University (on my request!) on April 27th at 9:30. Anyone in the DC area who is interested is encouraged to attend.

Anyone with questions about YWC is encouraged to contact me!

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Alex Knepper can be contacted at apkkib@aol.com.

Many people may already know about this, but today Quinnipiac released a poll that brought good news for Charlie Crist:

The lousy economy is having no impact on Florida Gov. Charlie Crist’s sky-high job approval, which remains 66 – 23 percent positive, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Republican Crist’s 66 – 20 percent approval among Democrats and 68 – 23 percent approval with independent voters is as good as his 68 – 25 percent score among Republicans.

…”There may be some GOP activists who think Gov. Charlie Crist isn’t conservative enough, but they aren’t striking a chord around the state,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “Across America, an awful lot of governors are seeing their approval ratings dip as the recession requires higher taxes and cuts in government programs, but Teflon Charlie keeps chugging along with numbers that most of his fellow governors would die for.”

“Gov. Crist’s approval rating remains not just lofty but lofty across the board. In fact his disapproval among Republicans, although small, is worse than his disapproval from Democrats and independent voters. He is also the unusual politician who has no gender gap,” said Brown.

How does Good Time Charlie do it?  Nearly identical approval among Republicans, independents AND Democrats?  This poll compounds evidence supplied by the Florida GOP’s internal poll released yesterday, which pegged Crist’s approval at 74 percent, that the Republican Party both in the state and at the national level can best serve its interests by discouraging Marco Rubio from challenging Crist if he runs for the Senate, which most people believe he will.  Charlie’s extraordinary popularity provides the GOP a deadly weapon for keeping at least one Senate seat of the large, influential swing state in Republican hands.  Instead, the GOP should prod Rubio to run for whatever seat Crist chooses not to pursue.

Here’s a great video put together by a friend of mine, Chet Collins of ChetComm Productions, on the TEA Party rally held earlier today here in Steubenville, Ohio.

250-300 people showed up which is huge considering what a small town it is with a considerably heavy union presence. Enjoy!

Tom Tancredo is far from my favorite person – but this is ridiculous. Then again, is it really surprising that our universities are sliding further into radicalism? The footage was shot earlier today at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill.

I’ve found reports for attendance at 59 of the Tax Day Tea Parties being held across the country today in protest of the socialist-tending policies enacted by the federal government recently, spanning multiple administrations. Just to give you an idea of how successful these rallies are being, in just these 59 events, a total of nearly 88,000 people protested.

If you take an average attendance of these events, you end up with an average of nearly 1,500 people per rally. There are supposedly nearly 800 events like these going on nationwide, so multiplied out that means nearly 1.2 million people will have taken to the streets today. Let’s hope it does some good.

See below the fold for numbers, and add your own in the comments.
(more…)

This great speech by Governor Sanford illustrates why he could very well tap into the frustrations of the new Silent Majority and ride the wave of anti-government sentiment symbolized by the Tax Day Tea Parties to the Republican nomination (and quite possibly, the general election, if Obama’s approval ratings drop) in 2012:

I’m going to break some rules of writing here and just lay my thesis on the table first thing: “federalism” has become nothing more than a knee-jerk reactionary stance of pseudo-intellectual conservatives who need a term to grasp on to which they believe describes their reaction against expanding the size of the federal government.

The latest stunt by Rick Perry highlights this issue extremely well – an issue I’ve been wanting to write on for quite some time now. Today’s actions down in Texas provide a great framework within which to dialogue it.

Now I am absolutely a fan of smaller federal government. Don’t get me wrong. But here’s the deal: the Constitution was not written in a vacuum, and the 10th amendment isn’t the only thing in there pertaining to this struggle between federal and states’ rights. Some history and context would serve conservatives well. Let’s go back a couple hundred years…

The colonists’ revolt against Britain was a direct result of the overreach of the British government, which supplied an interminable supply of anti-statism from which the early Americans drew while creating their new government – a confederation. The confederation model left practically all power in the hands of state governments and provided an incredibly weak central government composed of a Congress plagued with numerous problems of authority – particularly in the areas of defense and trade. It quickly became evident that a confederation, with the nexus of control resting with the states, was simply not going to work (Shay’s Rebellion, anyone?). So the colonists set forth to make a more perfect union of their states.

What was forged was the seemingly schizophrenic compromise document that became our Constitution. The colonists proposed a system of government that had never been tried anywhere before, and called it a federalist republic. In this new system, a central federal government was given increased power and authority (comparatively speaking) but states maintained their own distinct spheres of power and could operate autonomously of the federal government. It is from here, focusing on the latter part far more than the former, that most conservatives derive their understanding of “federalism” as a shortened title of the federalist republic philosophy.

However, the story does not stop there. It cannot be emphasized enough that this document was a compromise between radicals (who wanted more state authority) and conservatives (who fought for more federal authority) and many other groups who had their own ideas of what government should look like. Compromise was necessary to even get the document ratified, and much of it was left intentionally vague for that purpose. And people have been debating the gray areas ever since.

One of those gray areas is at least two portions of the Constitution which seem to contradict one another (or, in the best light, balance one another out). The first is the conservative’s favorite part, the tenth amendment, which says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” This is what we love to run around quoting. But nobody seems to stop to ask: what powers are delegated to the United States federal government, anyhow?

This is where Article I comes in. Article I, Section 8 states that Congress (as part of the federal government) specifically has the authority to provide for the general welfare of the country and make any laws necessary to do so.

Read that last sentence again. Because it seems that it’s a section missing in most conservatives’ civics lessons.

Instead of blindly screaming “The federal government has no authority to do this because of the 10th amendment!” then, we should be dialogging the question, “Does this fall under ‘provision for the general welfare of the country?’”

There are a number of cases throughout history that have hinged on that question. The thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments during Reconstruction are probably the biggest examples, and are examples of where the authority of the federal government was increased (it had no explicit authority to deal with slavery, which was seen as a state issue) to supersede the states’ for the purpose of the general welfare of the country. Nobody is going to argue these amendments were a mistake.

Today, however, it seems that conservatives are all too happy to just throw the word “federalism” around without realizing that what they are espousing is a misunderstanding – a shallow philosophy without roots in history. We argue as if “federalism” as a pure philosophy is something to be fought for and desired across the board, without question. But federalism cannot solve all of the problems this nation faces. It simply cannot. There are times where we must recognize the authority of the federal government to provide for the general welfare of our country. How and when and how expensive those plans are should certainly be up for debate, but to simply claim the United States government has no authority to act in these areas is foolish, arrogant, and mis- or uninformed. If you want to fight against the expanding size and scope of the federal government, fine. I’ll join you in that fight. Just don’t go around labeling it as “defending the tenth amendment” or fighting for “federalism”.

Joe Biden: “Paying Higher Taxes, Patriotic Thing To DO”

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Tea Party – Columbia, SC

Tea Party in Vero Beach, FL

Tea Party in Franklin, NC

Tea Party in Lansing Michigan

Tea Party in Pittsburgh, PA

Damon Linker, in a post for the The New Republic, addresses the idea of a post-Christian America, and what is likely to replace devout orthodoxy.  He writes:

To my mind, the most likely and salutary option is moralistic therapeutic deism. Here is the core of its (Rousseauian) catechism, in the words of sociologist Christian Smith:

1. “A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.”

2. “God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.”

3. “The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.”

4. “God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.”

5. “Good people go to heaven when they die.”

Would this mark “The End of Christian America”? Only if we define “Christian America” the way the religious right prefers to — namely, as a nation with the soul of an orthodox Catholic-Christian church. Viewed in broader terms, a nation in which a majority embraced something like moralistic therapeutic deism would still be Christian in all kinds of important ways. Its moral and civic outlook, for example, would be a distillation of the Christian ethic of loving one’s neighbor.

Theologically speaking, this watered-down, anemic, insipid form of Judeo-Christianity is pretty repulsive. But politically speaking, it’s perfect: thoroughly anodyne, inoffensive, tolerant. And that makes it perfectly suited to serve as the civil religion of the highly differentiated twenty-first century United States…It just wouldn’t be the kind of Christian nation that makes a theocon feel all warm and fuzzy. And that’s a very good thing indeed.

I have no real quarrel with Linker’s account of the trends in modern America.  Christianity has become, for millions of Americans, a creed without content, and it’s not implausible that the average Christian now thinks of Christianity as a sort of feel-good deism.  Even mainline Protestant churches (and I’ve attended two of these regularly over the last few years) tend to focus more on right behavior, and less on creedal elements, salvation, divinity, or eternal truths.  Linker’s probably right that this is our modern solution to a “differentiated twenty-first century”; fighting about theology and morality is terribly messy when you’re surrounded by those who don’t agree with you.

I don’t see this as a positive development.  Christianity is changing to deal with complex modern interactions because society is changing in a similar way.  To the extent that Americans, in the name of civility, adapt their religion to avoid conflict, they’re likely to adapt everything to avoid conflict.  If a man won’t defend his faith- which really is a desperately big thing- how can we expect him to defend his country, which is comparatively smaller?  The pursuit of civility- at the expense of logic and sound principles- is bound to lead men to surrender on all sorts of important questions.  And this is precisely what we see occurring as Christianity’s influence recedes in the West.  It’s no accident that the most “cosmopolitan” Americans are also those Americans least likely to condemn aggression from Hamas, Iran, and Islamic extremists.

The self-appointed guardians of sexual equality, personal liberty, and the right to live unshackled by tradition, ought to have more skin in a conflict with regimes and institutions that flagrantly abuse women, murder gays, and promote violent religious persecution.   Liberals might sneer at Conservatives who see the struggle against terrorism as a sort of war for Christianity,  but surely conservatives ought to sneer at Liberals who won’t even fight a war for Liberalism.  And this is not, of course, a purely modern phenomenon- it is modern only in America.  Britain and much of the west began undergoing this metamorphosis in the late 19th century, and the change was nearly solidified after World War I.  G.K. Chesterton illustrated the difficulty, in his fanciful novel, The Ball and the Cross.  The book’s plot follows a devout Catholic, and a devout Atheist who attempt to duel each other, but are continually interrupted by the police, who insist that people shouldn’t fight about such “big things”.

Chesterton’s novel, which was published in 1907, presaged a broader change in England.  Not 35 years later, Chamberlain’s Britain was surrendering Czechoslovakia and Austria to Hitler, under the logic of appeasement.  Churchill was castigated for his obstinacy, and left in the wilderness.  It was obvious, the appeasers insisted, that Hitler had legitimate demands; after all, both countries did contain significant German populations.  The German people had as much a right to…and anyway, there’s no use quarreling over freedom or sovereignty; these are frightfully big things and we wouldn’t want to upset anyone.  If this is the logic of appeasement, it is also, and more centrally to our age, the logic of Linker’s Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.  Both ideas lead, predictably enough, to the same end; a world where people of good will surrender big questions to men of bad will.

Linker thinks our “broad mindedness” a good thing, and praises a willingness to blur religious distinctions in the interest of harmony. This, he insists, is a political impulse worth emulating, and it’s necessary in our newly differentiated America.  But, I don’t relish a world where politics and theology are social calculations, not solid convictions.   In Chesterton’s novel, the two duelists end up in a madhouse; in the modern west, you and I will end up there.

h/t Ross Douthat

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Matthew E. Miller can be contacted at Obilisk18@yahoo.com

Race42012 is pleased to present the following Op-Ed by frequent Page 2 contributor Liz Lane (a.k.a. Liz)

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Governor James Richard Perry just asserted Texan state sovereignty.  If you haven’t caught the clip of his speech, in which he uses all the right language as far as I am concerned, catch it here:                       

Perry has boldly initiated what I think is by far the best, most orderly, and highly appropriate response to the Obama administration’s shameless power grab. Obama’s whiplash-causing jerk to the left in nearly all areas spits in the eye of the United States Constitution and has shaken private industry, as well as freaked out freedom-loving citizenry in this country.

Let’s call Perry’s move, the State Sovereignty Showdown strategy. His strategy relies on the 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution, which says: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” In fact, the Founding Fathers allowed the president only six areas of responsibility, and he/she was to be limited to just those areas:

1.     Chief of state over millions of Americans.

2.     Commander in chief over millions of military personnel.

3.     CEO of the whole executive branch of government.

4.     Chief diplomat of foreign relations.

5.     The chief architect of needed legislation.

6.     The “nation’s conscience” in granting pardons or reprieves when justice requires.

That was it. The founders felt these responsibilities were sufficiently great to occupy one man or woman, and that the President should be limited to spending executive time and effort in those areas only.

Problem being, since then Congress has assigned to the President the responsibilities of (are you ready, take a breath) insuring full employment for the nation’s work force, the obligation to run a federal housing program, underwriting trillions of dollars in private loans and insurance programs, providing relief to American and foreign victims of natural disasters, administering welfare, Medicare, and Medicaid programs, don’t forget social security, doling out billions for educating America’s youth, settling labor union management disputes, managing environmental protection in the entire country, regulating automobile, banking, coal mining, and other manufacturing industries, supervising all radio and television broadcasting, and I could go on. Did you know that NONE of these additional powers and responsibilities have been facilitated through the amendment process?

Ponder this in light of a statement made by James Madison :

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined…The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.” Federalist Papers No. 45

The problem with these friendly Congressional grants of power, combined with Obama’s determination to acquire even more power and responsibility for himself, is that doing things at the highest level is UNBELIEVABLY EXPENSIVE. We are talking about an increase of costs hundreds of times greater than if done at the local level. That’s just dumb. In addition, big government is slow, cumbersome, and inefficient. This “inefficiency factor” is one of the main reasons the Founding Fathers wanted things done in Washington to be kept to a minimum. They also worried that the billions, now trillions of dollars placed at the discretion of the executive branch would be used to intimidate and coerce both members of Congress, and the states. (Hmm, unheard of!) Not to mention it is absolutely impossible for one human being to administer all of these programs and more, especially if he/she is young and inexperienced and has no real life experience in decision-making, nor any traditional understanding of the Constitution. And a largely empty cabinet.

If other states boldly and methodically pass resolutions asserting their state sovereignty, stating in effect that their citizenry stands in solidarity with Texas, they would in effect create an umbrella of protection over Americans wishing to retain their freedom from tyrannical government as laid out in the United States Constitution. The Obama administration appears to be clamoring to acquire as much federal power and control of private industry as possible before the buzzer signaling the waning of Obama’s early political capital sounds. By implementing the “Perry Strategy”, the states and their citizenry might actually turn the tide against actions that are going to cause us greater and greater amounts of pain.

I would suggest that if you are the type of person willing to vote with your money and your feet to uphold a state where you knew you would be able to retain your freedom of speech, right to bear arms, have no taxation without representation, etc. that you contact your state reps and urge them to sponsor legislation asserting state sovereignty in solidarity with the great citizenry of Texas. Wouldn’t you love to see Obama come to the table with governors unified by Constitutional principles, and have a real dialogue as to what the federal government can do to assist states in moving their constituents forward economically and preserving individual freedoms? That would put the brakes on this chaotic mad dash toward socialism. And it would do us some good to have some of that concentrated power in D.C. re-distibuted back to the states and the people. You know, spread the wealth around, as seems to be so popular nowadays. Back to where it belongs.

Apologies to Dixie kin for “sweet tea” (pictured) redundancy as we are trying to reach a larger audience that includes northern economics Nobel Prize winners clueless about the 25-year Reagan Recovery.

For the first time in memory I won’t have to wait for the Braves score to know if an April 15th can be blunted by some good news. Having worked for myself for 17 of the 20 years of my professional life, I always wait till the last possible moment to fund those governments The Gipper identified as The Problem.

For this Tax Day will now have to share its previously exclusive billing with a tradition older than the venerable First Amendment, much less the invidious Sixteenth.

Today, the conservative grassroots of America will follow an example began in now ultra-liberal Boston and hold over 500 tea parties from sea to shining sea in every one of the Lower Forty-Eight in addition to the former and/or current home states of Barry Obama and Sarah Palin.

The Queen City in which I reside holds its own 2:00 pm version on Fourth Street near the Government Center after its 1:00 pm beginning outside the local dead tree Drive-by Charlotte Observer to underscore its frequent failure to observe anything that doesn’t fit their big government agenda.

We will examine the Charlotte Tea Party in this space tomorrow where we have frequently had to employ a Leghorn to blow away The Disturbers and its Drive-by allies’ Foghorns that distort the facts or leave them out all together.

Who knew that George Orwell would get it exactly right and exactly wrong in his 1984, that a free media would choose to reduce the dictionary and re-write history on behalf of tyrannical government rather than a tyrannical goverment imposing an un-free press.

Tyrannical government you say?, you angry, dangerous Obama/Napolitano-identified right-wing terrorist threat.

No, not the ominous Bushlied threat via library cards and non-draft armed forces at war with Islam by liberating Muslims and ridding their territories of megalomaniacal dictators and Taliban religious extremists. Identified American victims to date: 0

No, not the tens of thousands killed by Bush that trained to re-shape pentagons and WTCs. They are no more. Identified American victims to date: 0

No, not even the remaining would be reshapers now called purveyors of man-made disasters, formerly known as illegal enemy combatants or, God forbid, terrorists.

Their kind killed 3000 in one day and thousands abroad before and since while the Obama Left cites Timothy McVeigh ad nauseum to justify killing millions via abortion, once while a President Clinton blamed right wing talk radio for a McVeigh, but I digress.

No, not the crazed Code Pinks nor throwers of pies at Pat Buchanan, David Horowitz and Ann Coulter.

Rather, the danger comes from vehicles bearing Ron Paul bumper stickers; non-delinquent mortgagors championed by Santelli; and opposers of ending Newt and Bill’s welfare reform as we knew it. The imminent threat are those that opposed bailing out banks and AIGs; favor spanking Fannies; and hope Freddie’s Dead.

Such is the state of Homeland Security in the Age of Obama in which all threats from abroad including any foreigners here with visa overstays given that the Geithner economy talk down and the president’s policies that promise to destroy the dollar and keep investors on strike since the Democratic Party takeover due to promised tax hikes have removed the illegal immigrant threat by making job prospects better in Juarez than Walla Walla.

But in case any illegals remain, don’t dare cross Speaker Pelosi and deport them and please get them quickly legalized so they join unions and get wage rates up, as Obama dreams.

Now comes a former Obama campaign apologist with a Swedish medal around his neck that has switched Kool-Aid brands while still eschewing tea, no matter the level of sweetening.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman used to be a credible economist in the 90s; lost his way with political partisanship in the early to mid 2000s; and now sees The Messiah’s tripling of the federal debt and tripling of the budget deficit as a portion of GDP from Bush’s worst 3.8% to Obama’s first 12.8%; $750B stimulus; $450B omnibus spending bill; and $3.8 Trillion budget as puny.

Under the influence of the old Kool-Aid he often echoed his recent trashing of the Reagan recovery due to its budget deficits in the 3-5% of GDP range and unfair tax rate cuts for the rich.

Guess he missed Bill Clinton’s end of big government State of the 1995 Union and largest capital gains tax cut in American history, or does he trash the 90s as well.

All he seems to love and promote as an answer to the current recession is a return to a command economy on the order of WWII. He thinks we need a stimulus 4-5 times as large as Obama proposes.

I quite agree. The problem is that it can’t be gotten from government spending. It can only be gotten from the private sector, where reside those supply siders we call Americans that create real jobs that last.

Krugman seems to view the economy of the United States circa 1941-1945 as idyllic. Guess he missed the rationing and the war. Moreover, after the hay days of the 1950s when an American homeland untouched by Axis bombs held monopoly status, this country maintained its superiority via supply side policies of JFK, RWR, WJC/Newt and GWB that left more of the fruits of Americans labor in American hands.

Then came Frank and Dodd and Obama and Hillary all voting to let Fannie and Freddie direct the market.

Paul, its time for your intervention. Meet some Indian garb-clad white males angry at the Stamp Act and the Tea Tax. Meet black males Crispus Attucks angry at the British taxers and troop quarterers and Frederick Douglass angry at federal and state governments he wishes would leave him and his folk alone.

All we tea drinkers want are our rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

For Southerners that means Sweet Tea! and unlike Krugman’s, the Charlotte Observer and the Drive-bys’ and President Obama’s and Secretary Napolitano’s Kool-Aid,

Luzianne doesn’t get cloudy!

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published @ Examiner.com, where all for verification links may be accessed.

As a part of a CPA firm, I will be working late hours tonight.  Have you filed your taxes yet?  Will you be waiting in line at the post office, looking to get your letter stamped with today’s date so the IRS won’t hit you with penalties?  Or, are you one of those who have already filed, for whom today won’t be about the stress of seeing whether you can get all of your receipts together and find some CPA to take care of them?

Consider this an open thread for the day.  You deserve a chance to vent concerning the very real frustrations of a day set aside for the confiscation of your wealth.  I’d much rather see the Fair Tax (or a similar plan) enacted, but would also get behind a flat tax (which is what our current system used to be, so I’d only see it as temporary patch, not a solution).

Anthony Dalke linked to an AP article, profiling Newt Gingrich and 2012.

Asked whether he will make the transition from citizen to candidate, Gingrich gives an impish grin.  ”We’ll see,” he said.

Have no doubt, Speaker Gingrich will be a candidate for Presidential of the Unites States in 2012 and this is terrible news for Governor Romney.  Speaker Gingrich appeals to the Republican technocrats, many of the young house Republicans, D.C. insiders, conservative secularists and a large portion of the fundraising base of the party.  Although he will still run in 2012, this could spell the end of the Romney campaign.  Romney already faces opposition from a large contingent of evengelical voters and skepticism from neoconservatives, so for Romney to face competition with his natural base of support, may prevented him from going on the offensive for undecided Republican and independent voters.     

Along with a few of the other members of this site who were born the 1970′s, I became a reform-minded conservative during the era of The Contract with America.  Gingrich, Thompson, Engler, Kasich, Sanford, Pataki, among others, changed the face of the GOP and led this country to a decade of economic prosperity and radical (needed) bureaucratic reform.  Gingrich is the father of reform conservatism and for many of us, he will be our candidate of ideas in 2011-2012, even if one or two of us decide to endorse another candidate. 

Speaker Gingrich has been receiving heavy media exposure in 2009, but many wonder out loud if he can claim the title as one of the candidates ‘next in line’ for the nomination?  As history has proven, the perceived NIL candidate clinches the Republican nomination.  Palin, Romney and Huckabee can make a claim to that title, to various degrees, but is Gingrich in a position to do the same, since it has been so long since he has been on a ballot or in a position of political authority?  Luckily for Newt, older white males are the authorative demographic in our party and many of them remember the true-blue conservative values he legislated by. 

If you find yourself discounting the probability or importance of Gingrich peeling supporters away from Romney, practice saying the following words; Republican nominee-designate Mike Huckabee.

Kristofer Lorelli can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com

Mike Huckabee will headline the annual convention of the Iowa Association of Business and Industry:

The theme of this year’s convention is “Taking Care of Business” and Huckabee, who’s also an author and talk show host, was seen as having experience and insight on that theme and on health care and wellness, said ABI lobbyist John Gilliland.

No big surprises here.  Huckabee probably wants to maintain support and name recognition in the state, while also appealing to the (presumably) more fiscally conservative residents of the state.

Today the AP published an article about whether Newt Gingrich will throw his hat in the 2012 race.  Among the opinions presented:

Grover Norquist, a prominent conservative and president of Americans for Tax Reform, said Gingrich is on nearly every Republican short list of possible White House prospects.

“One of the ways you judge these guys is how hard they’re working, and Newt is out there hustling,” Norquist said.

…”Gingrich alone, of all the guys who may be running, brings a history of being a movement and party builder,” Norquist said.

That movement ultimately imploded and Gingrich resigned following heavy GOP losses in the 1998 midterm elections. But Norquist and others said he is smart enough to have learned from that stinging defeat.

…Some question whether he can reinvent himself and move past those images still seared in the minds of many who lived through the failed Contract with America. To some, Gingrich is viewed as a polarizing figure for a party looking to expand its base.

“I’m skeptical,” said Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University. “I see him more as someone who’s been sticking to an orthodox conservative philosophy than as someone who would broaden the party’s appeal.”

…For Republicans struggling to regain their footing, Gingrich is a battle-tested veteran with experience going head-to-head with a Democratic White House. Republicans flailing to find a message have turned to Gingrich for help.

“When you are the party in the wilderness you turn to an intellectual leader of the party, like Newt, to get you out,” GOP pollster Whit Ayers said. “He’s clearly playing a key role in revitalizing the Republican Party.”

Gingrich describes his role this way: “I’m a citizen leader who’s also a Republican.”

That last quote, from Newt himself, suggests that if he does decide to run, he may try to cast himself in a Reaganesque mold – a “citizen-politican” who wants to step off the sideliness and back into the game to correct the injustices he cannot stand to let continue.  However, Reagan didn’t have the polarizing reputation, personal baggage and lack of executive experience Newt has.

As some people have mentioned in comments and Drudge has highlighted, the Department of Homeland Security today released a nine-page report, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment”, which it has sent to police departments across the nation.  While I will not question the merit of the report, one part terrified me:

A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines “rightwing extremism in the United States” as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.

So DHS means to say that some “groups” may – gasp! – actually embrace federalism?  Impossible!  Thankfully, we have a little thing called the Tenth Amendment (just for clarification, here’s the actual text: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”) that permits this type of behavior.

Lastly, a Florida GOP internal poll has pegged Charlie Crist’s approval rating at a staggering 74 percent, with 23 percent disapproving, far above the President’s 60 percent approval in the state:

The poll also said Crist holds a 50 percent lead in any Republican primary, for the Senate or re-election as governor. The poll said Crist beats each prospective Democratic opponent by 30 to 35 points in theoretical match-ups for the general election.

If Crist goes for the Senate, [State GOP Chairman Jim] Greer said it’s important for the GOP to have a relatively tranquil primary — not a divisive three- or four-way fight for the nomination to succeed him. He said it’s likely the Democrats would unite behind one candidate, possibly Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, and that the Republicans can’t afford to fracture their party in the primary.

Perhaps these numbers suggest that the GOP should not encourage a primary challenger if Good Time Charlie decides to run for the Senate, as doing so would risk squandering the broad support Crist has among independents.  I’ve come to believe that Charlie’s style – the perpetually optimistic hand-grabber and charmer hesistant to take tough stances and make tradeoffs – would fit better in the Senate.  My humble opinion holds that the state GOP should court Marco Rubio to run for governor, as the two most frequently mentioned Republican candidates for Crist’s current office, Bill McCollum and Charles Bronson, cannot capitalize on Crist’s success with independents (McCollum has a reputation as a strong social conservative, and Bronson appears to lack much charisma).  Rubio’s Cuban ethnicity, reputation for innovation and close ties to the popular Bush brother could make for a candidacy that appeals to both Conservatives and moderates in the Sunshine State and gives the party its best chance to keep the state’s highest office in Republican hands.

This isn’t exactly political, but you just have to give kudos to these girls…

If you were to mix the Olympics with American Idol – you would probably get something like the Eurovision Song Contest. It’s always a huge deal across the pond, as the nations of Europe compete in an continent-wide grudge-match of pop musicians. However, as I reported in January, this year’s show took on political significance when a bunch of self-hating Israeli intellectuals begged Israeli-Arab singer Mira Awad not to represent Israel in the competition. Apparently, they were concerned that Mira’s duet with Jewish pop star Noa would cause people to have positive feelings toward Israel. Of course, their calls went unheeded, and Noa and Mira have recently released the song they wrote for the contest (see video above).

Bravo to this Arab-Jewish duo for standing up in the face of adversity. I wish them luck in semifinals on May 12th and (hopefully) the finals on May 16th. Personally, I think they should be a top contender, considering their compelling story and Noa’s status as a Europe-wide pop icon. I think they have a very good song as well, but you never know what the voters are going to like. For instance, consider that the 2006 competition was won by these guys…

…Mommy…make the scary Finland people go away!

After taking some criticism from the media for his call to reform the immigration laws of the United States during President Obama’s first term, Governor Romney penned a written response, published in The Boston Globe. 

Romney: my view on immigration reform is exactly as I described in my 2008 campaign.

Governor Romney goes on to say this;

First, illegal immigration should be eliminated by securing the border, creating an immigration identification card, and establishing an employment verification system and penalties for noncompliance. Those who have come here illegally should be able to apply for residency, but their application should be given no advantage relative to those who have remained in their home countries.

Second, the legal immigration process should be simplified, and our immigration policies should favor applicants with skills and education. I oppose the McCain-Kennedy bill because it allows virtually all illegal immigrants to permanently remain in the United States.

In a 2007 interview with Human Events, Governor Romney said the following about the illegal immigration issue and McCain-Kennedy.

Well, the principle for me is this one: that is that those that are here illegally should be allowed to apply for permanent residency, a green card, or citizenship just like anybody else. Get in line with everybody else. No special pathway by virtue of their having come here illegally. And I think that was the major problem, of course, in the Senate bill, and the reason the entire nation stood up and opposed it. And that was that everybody who was here illegally was given a special pathway to permanent residency. They paid their $5,000, they got to stay here forever, and that was what was wrong. Had they said, “Look, that Z visa is going to be a temporary phenomenon. People will have it for some period of time to arrange their affairs, to get in line whatever,” that would have been a far more acceptable bill. But an amnesty-type program: I know that there are some, like Senator McCain, that point out that they had to pay a tax, that’s not technically amnesty. Well maybe he’s technically right, but for all intents and purposes, it is a form of amnesty to allow everybody who’s come here illegally to stay here forever.

His views appear to be fairly consistent. 

Unfortunately for Governor Romney, he has still not answered the one critical question.  What to do about the millions of illegal aliens, 2 million of which are criminals?  Asking them to apply for residency does not resolve this crisis and either remove them from the United States or make them legal residents in a reasonable time period.  Romney did not directly answer Jed Babbin’s question back in December of 2007 and he still has not answered it today.  Probably because Romney said this back in 2005;

Romney also said in the interview that it was not “practical or economic for the country” to deport the estimated 12 million immigrants living in the US illegally. “These people contribute in many cases to our economy and to our society,” he said. “In some cases, they do not. But that’s a whole group we’re going to have to determine how to deal with.” 

That was a very ‘John McCain’ style answer, on immigration reform. 

Most importantly, the media missed out on the point that Governor Romney was trying to make last week, which was that passing immigration reform in the next three years will be a positive for the Republican party and the 2012 GOP candidate for President.  Taking this issue off the table will allow the Republican party to focus on reaching out to Latino voters without this immigration reform albatross around their neck.  

On this point, I agree with Governor Romney 100%, although Governor Romney is smart enough to understand that any immigration reform legislation passed within the next three years will include as much or more opportunities for amnesty as the McCain-Kennedy bill allowed.

Of course, if Governor Romney was serious about reaching out to Latino voters (and the hundreds of thousands of Americans with children who were born abroad), he would not have suggested ending birthright citizenship laws.   

Rick Perry has thrown his support to legislation in the Texas House that asserts the state’s sovereignty:

“I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state,” Gov. Perry said. “That is why I am here today to express my unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm the states’ rights affirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I believe that returning to the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution and its essential 10th Amendment will free our state from undue regulations, and ultimately strengthen our Union.”

A number of recent federal proposals are not within the scope of the federal government’s constitutionally designated powers and impede the states’ right to govern themselves. HCR 50 affirms that Texas claims sovereignty under the 10th Amendment over all powers not otherwise granted to the federal government.

It also designates that all compulsory federal legislation that requires states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties, or that requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding, be prohibited or repealed.

I can’t say I blame Perry for backing this.

A Politico poll reveals that Sarah Palin may have a troublesome reputation problem among registered voters:

Palin attracted the highest percentage of those who did not trust her at all to identify the right solutions, topping Pelosi 33 percent to 32 percent.

Granted, a large number of those who expressed distrust of Palin probably count themselves as members of the Democratic Party.  Nonetheless, this poll suggests that Palin may still suffer from the negative image of her perpetuated and reinforced by the MSM.  On the bright side, she still has two years to rehabilitate her reputation if she plans on throwing her hat in the 2012 race.

Race42012′s version of the famous story:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. So far, so good, eh?

The shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like him, are cold and starving.

NBC, PBS, ABC, CBS and CNN show up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food. America and the world is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be that, in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Then a representative of the NAAGB (National Association of Green Bugs) shows up on Nightline and charges the ant with “green bias”, and makes the case that the grasshopper is the victim of 30 million years of greenism.

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when he sings “It’s Not Easy Being Green.” President Obama make a special guest appearance on the CBS Evening News to tell a concerned Katie Couric that they will do everything they can for the grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the Bush summers, or as Obama refers to it, the “Fahrenheit ’08″.

Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi exclaim in an interview with Chris Matthews that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and they call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his “fair share.”

Finally, the EEOC drafts the “Economic Equity and Anti-Greenism Act”. Retroactive to the beginning of the summer, the ant was fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.  The ant moves to Dubai and starts a successful agribiz company. 

MSNBC later shows the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he’s in, which just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around him since he doesn’t know how to maintain it.  Inadequate government funding is blamed, Bill Clinton is appointed to head a commission of enquiry that will cost $25,000,000.

The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose, the New York Times blames it on the obvious failure of the previous Republican led Congress to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity. The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders, praised by the government for enriching America’s multicultural diversity, who promptly set up a marijuana grow op and terrorize the community. 

My self-imposed 48 hours of patriotic celebration of the swift and flawless rescue of the Maersk Alabama ship, crew and captain by the US Navy under the command of the President of the United States, is now over.

As promised, I will soon post a complete survey of the perilous Obama post-pirate Presidency (O.P.P.P) that America now faces, including a more complete review of the Somali piracy problem itself.

But I could not resist some immediate observations after President Obama’s own “Mission Accomplished” moment from yesterday:

President Barack Obama vowed Monday “to halt the rise of piracy,” while shipmates of the rescued American freighter captain called for tough action against Somali bandits who are preying on one of the world’s busiest sea routes.

The President has rightly received praise from the right for his cool handling of this first pirate attack on an American-flagged ship in over a century, including Rush Limbaugh and yours truly.

One ship and crew were rescued from pirates. That mission was accomplished, but the Islamist piracy problem remains, with more than 15 ships still being held by pirates, three of which were taken within the past three days.

I am reminded of a more famous “Mission Accomplished” statement by a United States President who did not receive reciprocal treatment from the left, despite his warnings of the longer war to come. President George W. Bush famously landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln to celebrate the toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq and then reminded:

We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We are bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We are pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. We have begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons, and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. We are helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people.

The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. And then we will leave — and we will leave behind a free Iraq.

When Bush’s predictions of tough times in Iraq came true, most of the Democratic Party turned on him with their Bushlied meme that emboldened our enemies. President Bush stayed the course through thick (Hillary) and thin (Obama) attacks and votes against funding, and now, the Thin Man finally congratulated our armed forces in Iraq for their great gift to their people and even described their work as a “success”.

Not holding breath for the current CINC to praise his predecessor for making a former terrorist nation an ally safer for Americans than the ‘hoods of Detroit and Chicago.

After the aircraft carrier speech under the banner of crew proud of their role in removing a megalomanical muderer of hundreds of thousands, their Commander in Cheif went on to win the larger war: with zero further attacks on US soil after 911; a decimated al Qaida worldwide; safe havens in Iraq replaced by Connecticut II; and havens in Afghanistan and Pakistan not safe from US forces and their drones.

President Obama was left a world and a United States much safer from terrorism. So far, most of his broken campaign promises continue Bush policies that have kept us safer. Many have not, but we will dicuss that later in the upcoming O.P.P.P column.

President Bush did not address the piracy problem, and this column criticized him for that over a year ago. That same President was left a terrorism mess and cleaned it up. That was a much larger mess than piracy.

President Obama should, at least, take out the actual Somali port harbors that presently serve the pirate ships if not the inland lairs and other safe harbors of same. This does not require a ground operation like the one that led to Black Hawk Down.

Let the bombing begin.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Originally published by Mike DeVine, Legal Editor for The Minority Report and Examiner.com, where all for verification links may be accessed.

Our glitterati President adds another celebrity to his stable.

We can all be thankful that Phil Spector doesn’t live in Minnesota, because he’d likely be a Senator today.

My latest Pajamas Media piece is up and I have to say of all the pieces I’ve written, it is probably among those that I’m the most proud of:

I’ve taken time off from work on April 15 to be at my local tea party. As the tea parties occur, the media will offer their spin on why people are there.

Large events like this are remarkable. In some ways, they’re comparable to baseball games, where you’ll find some people with an agenda aside from the game. If the media applied the same coverage to baseball games that it applies to tea parties, it would assume that, if someone gets through security and streaks across the field nude, most of the crowd are closet nudists.

Of course, most just want to see the game and have no interest in the streaker. Similarly, the streaker has no interest in the baseball game. He simply wants to streak nude in front of a large audience.

Like our baseball streaker, some at the tea parties will have their own agendas that have little or nothing to do with the cause for which most people are going to attend. Most would rather not be defined by the proverbial streaker, and I’m no exception. I’m not going to the tea party to make the case that President Obama is a Muslim born in Indonesia, to advocate secession from the union, or to explain how America’s problems are the direct results of actions by members of the Council on Foreign Relations. I’m not going as a Republican; I’m going as an American.

My party has let the country down with its massive overspending, corrupt career politicians, and willingness to play business as usual when it’s not called for. As much as I’m not a fan of the Obama administration, if he’s replaced in 2012 by a feckless Republican president with a feckless Republican Congress that believes only its own re-election, our country will be no better for it.

Read the whole thing here.

Newsmax.com reports that Harry Reid has stepped up his fundraising activities, in preparation for a tough 2010 reelection battle:

Mr. Reid now has more than $5 million on hand after starting the year with $3.3 million, said a Democratic official familiar with the Reid campaign’s first-quarter contribution reports, which are due Monday.

The official did not want to be identified discussing campaign-finance figures not yet made public.

The cash infusion will push his total contributions to $7.6 million for the 2010 re-election race, compared with the $9 million total he raised for the 2004 campaign. Since his 2004 election victory, the Reid campaign committee has given about $1 million to other Democratic candidates and party entities.

The NRSC will in all likelihood make this race a priority next year.  Let’s hope that John Cornyn can find a strong candidate to take down Reid.

After the Alaska House voted unanimously to accept 100 percent of the “stimulus” funds allocated for the state (around $270 million), Gov. Palin has suggested cutting $250 million from the AK general fund to offset the spending increase:

“I’m going to keep telling them though that it is a problem, managing the public’s expectations, when these programs are expanded with these dollars, to assume that in 18 or 24 months the public will accept that we cut off some of the program expansion or that we lay off some of the public employees that will be hired with these dollars. It’s a tough thing to manage the public’s expectations and to grow government and think we’re going to scale it back in two years.”

…One idea is to cut school maintenance funds and the basic school foundation formula to the tune of about $113 million.

Federal funding in the same amount would replace the state dollars.

The other big item mentioned by the administration is to use $128.5 million to lower state spending on Medicaid, but Persily notes that legislators and the governor have been in unison on this since February.

Although the strings attached to the “stimulus” funds may increase government spending in Alaska in the long run, credit Palin for trying to salvage some sense of fiscal conservatism after the state House’s decidedly un-conservative decision.

James Pethokoukis of Capital Commerce hit on a great point Friday:

The WSJ just caught up to something I have been writing about for months:

Just 12% of the economists expect the unemployment rate to fall some time this year. More than a third of respondents expect the jobless rate to peak in the first half of 2010, while about half don’t see unemployment declining until the second half of 2010. … The economists’ forecasts indicate that the peak in the unemployment rate is likely to coincide with the midterm elections — possibly bad news for Democrats. Even if the economy is growing, Americans still will be feeling the effects of the recession and could blame the incumbent. For example, when George H.W. Bush lost the presidency in 1992, the economy had been out of a recession for more than a year, but the unemployment rate didn’t peak until June, and there was slow growth through the election.

Me:  Obama has a deep reservoir of goodwill with voters. But do congressional Democrats? By all rights, 2010 should be at least another 198 when the Republicans lost 27 seats in the House in the midterm elections. High-tech gerrymandering will help the Dems hold seats, but it just be a tough year nonetheless.

For some additional encouraging news for the GOP, Monday Rasmussen released some promising poll data, with regard to which party likely voters trust on certain issues:

Surveys of 1,000 Likely Voters
April 7-10, 2009

Issue	Democrats	Republicans
Health Care	48%	39%
Education	45%	36%
Economy	45%	42%
Iraq	44%	42%
Social Security	41%	41%
Nat’l Security	41%	49%
Taxes	39%	45%
Abortion	39%	42%
Immigration	36%	41%
Gov’t Ethics	34%	31%

Rasmussen continues:

It is still too early to determine whether voters are trending away from the economic initiatives of President Obama and congressional Democrats, but this is the closest the two parties have been on the issue of the economy since the first week of last September. In March, voters trusted the Democrats more by a 47% to 40% margin.

…Republicans now have moved further ahead of Democrats on the issues of national security and taxes. The GOP also has come on strong on several other issues, including immigration and Social Security.

Republicans hold an eight-point lead on national security, up from six-points last month, representing their biggest lead since early January. New Rasmussen polling shows that confidence in the War on Terror has rebounded slightly this month.

On taxes, voters trust Republicans more by a 45% to 39% margin. Over the past two months, the GOP held three-point leads on the issue.

…Just as the president announced his plans to push immigration reform last week, Republicans moved ahead on the topic of immigration, leading the Democrats in voter trust by a 41% to 36% margin. In March, Democrats held a two-point lead on the issue.

The parties are now tied on the issue of Social Security, a topic the Democrats held solid leads on for several years of tracking. Now, each party earns trust from 41% of voters. In March, Democrats led 44% to 39% on the issue.

…The GOP has moved ahead on the issue of abortion, 42% to 39%, after trailing by two points a month ago.

If these trends continue, the GOP will have plenty of ammo to use in next year’s Congressional elections.  Furthermore, if Obama’s personal popularity collapses due to prolonged economic troubles, including inflation and lagging recovery in job growth, the party’s situation might prove less apocalyptic than many believe.

Forget Pelosi and Reid. THIS man should be the focus of every criticism leveled at Democrats in Congress.  

I thinks it’s time that we start looking at the silver lining here; after being accused of having a talk radio host as our de facto leader, look at what the Democrats deemed worthy of the United States Senate: Left-wing radio host and SNL comedian Al Franken. Franken should be made the face of Congressional Democrats. Every piece of legislation should be the ‘Franken Bill’ or the ‘Pelosi/Franken Bill’. A phrase like ‘Franken Democrats’ needs to be made as popular as ‘Reagan Democrats’.  Every single one of those 65 House Democrats who reside in districts carried by John McCain should be targeted, with each congressman sharing mailers, ads, and viral videos with Franken.  Each remaining moderate Dem, every last New Democrat should have their names linked with Franken permanently.  I wonder how Evan Bayh will feel having his record married to Franken’s, or Blanch Lincoln or Jim Webb. This is a tremendous opportunity to expose the already growing divide between Obama’s extreme liberalism and the remaining New Democrats like Bayh.  

Moderate Republicans were the victims of the left’s endless crusade against Bush. The New Democrats are the weak link in this new majority, and clowns like Franken are key to painting them all with the same brush.

From the AP:

President Barack Obama directed his administration Monday to allow unlimited travel and money transfers by Cuban Americans to family in Cuba, and to take other steps to ease U.S. restrictions on the island, a senior administration official told The Associated Press.The formal announcement was being made at the White House Monday afternoon, during presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs’ daily briefing with reporters. The official spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to upstage the president’s announcement.

With the changes, Obama aims to create new space for the Cuban people in their quest for political freedom and a democratic government, in part by making them less dependent on the Castro regime, the official said.

Other steps taken Monday include allowing gift parcels to be send to Cuba, and issuing licenses to increase communications among and to the Cuban people. About 1.5 million Americans have relatives in Cuba.

Obama had promised to take these steps as a presidential candidate. It has been known for over a week that he would announce them in advance of his attended this weekend of a Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.

Thoughts?  Reactions?

A Minnesota court confirmed Monday that Democrat Al Franken won the most votes in his 2008 Senate race against Republican Norm Coleman.

Senator Coleman has one last option, an appeal to the state Supreme Court.  He has 10 days to file this appeal.

After a statewide recount and seven-week trial, Franken stands 312 votes ahead. Franken actually gained more votes from the election challenge than Coleman, the candidate who brought it.  The judges rejected Coleman’s argument that a state board improperly made up for a packet of ballots lost between the election.

Europe

Incompetence at the US State Department

Terrorist (LTTE) attack on Sri Lankan embassy in Norway

Moldovan President blames Romania, Serbia

IRA group warns of more attacks on high-profile targets on British mainland

New film ‘may give IRA dissidents ammunition’

Erupting violence puts Irish peace plan at risk

Gangs of youths threw petrol bombs at police in Northern Ireland on Saturday after a prominent republican was among three people arrested over the murder of two British soldiers.  The troubled province’s police chief, meanwhile, warned that hundreds of dissidents, whom he described as “very dangerous,”were aiming to derail its fledgling peace process.

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Asia

US keeps silent as Europe urges restraint as Thai violence escalates

Civil war brewing in Thailand

Obama ignores US hostages in North Korea

China executes Muslims and Tibetans

Islamist terrorists pushing Pakistan towards collapse

“We’re now reaching the point where, within one to six months, we could see the collapse of the Pakistani state,”

Russia blamed for pipeline blast

Turkmenistan has accused Russia of causing an explosion on a gas pipeline by giving less than a day’s notice before abruptly cutting its imports. 

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Americas

Latin America to Push Obama on Cuba Embargo at Summit

13 Peruvian Troops Killed in Ambushes

Bolivia’s Morales to keep up hunger strike protest

Will Obama Surrender American Sovereignty?

Obama administration to release terrorists

The secret prisons are now empty, Panetta said, and the agency has not taken any new prisoners since he became director in February.  The CIA is now preparing plans for the prisons to be permanently shut down. An intelligence official said the facilities have to be cleaned of any potentially sensitive materials before they can be closed.

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Africa

Christian Children Kidnapped, enslaved, raped and forced to be Muslims (Video)

Congo rebels still a major challenge

US court allows apartheid claims

China taking over from Europe in Africa, say church leaders

US taxpayers to bail-out Botswana’s leading industry

The Botswana diamond cutting industry that has been subdued to the global economic crisis is about to get some support from the USA government through its Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), to the tune of US $ 250 million, sources said Friday afternoon.

Why is Adam rigidly principled while I look at everything through the lens of practicality?

I don’t think it’s an accident that Adam, who refuses to cede an inch of ground on abortion, gay marriage, or any other social issue, is from Idaho, one of the quintessential red states, while I hail from Maryland and, while in college, the District of Columbia.

All I’ve ever known is far-left Democratic rule. I live under Martin O’Malley, the man ranked dead last by CATO in its recent economic report. My state legislature is dominated by liberal Democrats. Every Congressman from my state is a Democrat except for one. Both senators from my state are Democrats.

In contrast, Adam lives in a state with just the opposite. All he knows is down-the-line conservatism. Republican governor, senators, and state legislature… The only exception exists, as in Maryland, with one Congressman from the opposite party.

It’s easy to get used to that.

But where would Adam’s brand of conservatism get him in Maryland? I’ve written in the past about how Andy Harris was a foolish choice to run in Maryland’s first district (Frank Kratovil is likely in danger of losing his seat in 2010, though). Alan Keyes was the Republican Party’s nominee for Senate in 1992. The former was a needless defeat; the latter, a terribly embarrassing fiasco. Center-right candidates like Bob Ehrlich and Michael Steele proved far more successful.

Pragmatism is adaptable, at least: principle where possible, moderation where necessary. Principle is rigid, unadaptable — unadulterated principle gets us nowhere in Maryland, New York, or Vermont.

Does living in a deep red state make one less hospitable to pragmatic thought? Conversely, does living in a deep blue state instill a sense of pragmatism? It’s a thought well-worth considering…