Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced today that he is not running for Governor of Colorado and threw his support behind Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper (who has yet to announce himself). So, unless there are more surprises here - John Hickenlooper is probably the new opponent for Republican Scott McInnis.

Now, there was some polling released today showing McInnis up against both Hickenlooper and Salazar, which caused some to comment on my comments-section fretting about a potential Hickenlooper candidacy. And while the numbers are far better than I expected, as a Coloradoan I know just how dangerous Hickenlooper is. When he ran for Mayor, he was something of a long shot – but by the end of the campaign, everybody loved “Hick”. Seriously, how can you not like a professional microbrewery operator with a funny name and even funnier campaign commercials?

Listen, Hickenlooper may not be as bulletproof as I thought (thank goodness). However, if he can pull a surprise come-from-behind mayoral win, he sure as heck can come from 5 points down against Scott McInnis. I will also stand by my claim that - if he wins – Hickenlooper quickly becomes a Democratic frontrunner in the 2016 presidential election. Yeah, I may be overstating this a little – but I’m doing this for a reason. We CAN NOT underestimate this guy. Take a look at these TV ads and you’ll see why…

Rasmussen Connecticut Senatorial Survey

• Richard Blumenthal (D) 56%
• Rob Simmons (R) 33%

• Richard Blumenthal (D) 58%
• Linda McMahon (R) 34%

• Richard Blumenthal (D) 60%
• Peter Schiff (R) 24%

How would you rate the job Barack Obama has been doing as President?

• Strongly approve 39% [36%] (44%)
• Somewhat approve 17% [21%] (15%)
• Somewhat disapprove 8% [10%] (9%)
• Strongly disapprove 35% [33%] (30%)

Survey of 500 likely voters was conducted January 6, 2010. The margin of error is +/- 4.5 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted December 7, 2009 are in square brackets. Results from the poll conducted September 10, 2009 are in parentheses.

I’m usually not much a of consumer-issues type guy, but one issue I have been interested by is the war on the  chemical Bisphenol A (BPA) – which is used to strengthen plastics. Studies have shown that the likelihood of BPA causing human injury is roughly equal to the odds of the Loch Ness Monster being struck by lightning, but according to our friends on the left continue to insist that it’s deadly and needs to be banned. It’s really rather ridiculous, and highly reminiscent of the war on the harmless pesticide DDT.

The issue is in the news again today, as the FDA is preparing to release a new study on the risks (or lack therof) associated with BPA. Yet, as Ken Blackwell points out in an excellent column at Big Government, our friends in the leftist media have decided that they will refuse to wait for this conclusive science to be published before demanding action. He writes:

Despite the fact that BPA has consistently been proven by the FDA to be harmless to humans — and despite the fact that the FDA is about to release a new study on the chemical in a few weeks — several media outlets (most notably the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the LA Times) have called on the FDA to rule that the chemical is dangerous — before the new study comes out.  Talk about pre-judging a case…

Let me stress that BPA has consistently been proven to be harmless in humans.  What is more, as I’ve previously noted, liberal special interests have a clear financial stake in attacking the chemical.  Lastly, it is clear that numerous businesses which produce plastics ranging from sporting equipment to shatterproof water bottles, to eyeglass lenses, to CDs stand to lose significant amounts of money, possibly causing them to layoff employees in places such as my home state of Ohio, if BPA is banned.

He also asserts that, if indeed the FDA finds that this stuff is as dangerous as the alarmists think, then we need to get rid of it. However, especially considering the studies suggesting it is harmless, we shouldn’t go off half-cocked before the science even comes out.

Right now, it looks to me as if the the anti-industry left is unwilling to look at the scientific evidence, and their rhetoric is starting to sound less like science and more like political cryptozoology.

Pay no attention to the evidence, pay no heed to the science – the KNOW they’re right – as do Bigfoot hunters, Nessie chasers, and guys who think they saw Elvis at Applebee’s last Friday.

THE BPA MONSTER IS REAL!!

I’VE SEEN IT!!

 IT’S COMING TO KILL US!!

I KNOW  I DON’T HAVE PROOF, BUT YOU GOTTA BELIEVE ME, DUDE!!!

Same rhetoric - just with a slightly more convincing pseudoscientific veneer. So, to all of our alarmist friends in the media, good luck on your hunt for the BPA Monster. Maybe he’s hanging out with Abominable Snowman.

Rasmussen Colorado Gubernatorial Survey

• Scott McInnis (R) 47%
• Ken Salazar (D) 41%

• Scott McInnis (R) 47%
• Andrew Romanoff (D) 37%

• Scott McInnis (R) 45%
• John Hickenlooper (D) 42%

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Scott McInnis 60% {52%} (42%) / 26% {33%} (22%) {+34%}
• John Hickenlooper 57% / 32% {+25%}
• Ken Salazar 52% / 45% {+7%}
• Andrew Romanoff 37% {44%} [37%] / 43% {35%} [41%] {-6%}

How would you rate the job Barack Obama has been doing as President?

• Strongly approve 32% {31%} [35%] (35%)
• Somewhat approve 13% {19%} [13%] (16%)
• Somewhat disapprove 7% {6%} [8%] (7%)
• Strongly disapprove 47% {43%} [43%] (41%)

Note: In the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama received 54 percent of the vote in Colorado.

How would you rate the job Bill Ritter has been doing as Governor?

• Strongly approve 14% {18%} [11%] (15%)
• Somewhat approve 30% {29%} [29%] (34%)
• Somewhat disapprove 15% {20%} [25%] (20%)
• Strongly disapprove 37% {31%} [32%] (29%)

Survey of 500 likely voters was conducted January 6, 2010. The margin of error is +/- 4.5 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted December 8-10, 2009 are in curly brackets. Results from the poll conducted September 15, 2009 are in square brackets. Results from the poll conducted September 9, 2009 are in parentheses.

Rush Limbaugh, for all of his virtues, has more or less jumped the shark with this bizarre conspiracy theory. He has suggested — I’m not making this up — that President Obama is purposely destroying America to make the masses feel so miserable about their goverment, so discontent with our system, that they will want a Socialist People’s Revolution. As proof, he points to whipping boy Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.

Now, for those of you who still doubt, who still have trouble putting your arms around the concept that this economic disaster is purposeful, Peter Schweizer has written Architects of Ruin, page eight, this is a look back at Saul Alinsky. Saul Alinsky — Obama is one of his acolytes — argued the middle class would have to be brought around slowly to revolutionary change, to radical change, couldn’t do it overnight. And that the best way to do it was to take everything away from ‘em. This is Alinsky: “Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, nonchallenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution.”

Now, speaking for myself, I have no doubt that Obama wishes to remake this country because he finds it guilty, it is immoral, it is colonial, it has been imperialistic, its military is immoral, we have supported the wrong people, we have plundered the earth, we have stolen all these resources for our own benefit and our own lifestyle. He thinks that way of this country, it’s what he’s been taught, it’s what he learned at Harvard, it’s what he learned in Hawaii, it’s what he’s learned everywhere he’s been in school and by the people that matter to him. This country is unjust and immoral and he’s going to make it right. He was taught Alinsky at the University of Chicago, he lectured on Alinsky. Alinsky is a god to leftist radicals. And so when Alinsky writes that people have to feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the current system, i.e, capitalism, that they are willing to let go of the past, capitalism, and change the future, socialism. Well, I don’t know if you’ve seen the economic news. If you haven’t, I’ll share it with you. But they’re talking a double-dip real estate problem, unemployment, no change coming. People are unhappier in their jobs than ever before. There is a lot of frustration. There’s a lot of defeat out there, a lot of people feeling lost, a lot of people feeling futureless. And the way Obama and Rahm Emanuel look at this is a crisis to be taken advantage of.

This is one poorly-executed conspiracy, I must say, given that Obama’s “purposeful” economic destruction is shifting the pendulum back toward the right — and given that it could cost him re-election if this keeps up. Wasn’t this supposed to be some kind of Neo-New Deal? Isn’t that what Naomi Klein said? — Also, if Obama wants to end America’s evil imperialist ways, he’s doing a pretty poor job of it by sending 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.

But wait! — Could he simply not be sending enough troops, making us lose on purpose? — Thus, making us lose more faith in the system, inching us closer to the Revolution? He sent fewer troops than requested! (What if he’d sent the full 40,000? He would have been trying to divert attention from the disastrous economic policies! And if he’d withdrawn troops, it would have been proof that he thinks that America is imperialist and has no business fighting terrorists!) Spin, spin, spin. Unfalsifiable mush. Total garbage.

To paraphrase Lisa Murkowski on Sarah Palin’s ‘death panel’ remarks: the guy’s policies are bad enough as he is. We don’t need to lie about him to discredit him.

From Austin Russell, whom we hope will soon join us as a regular contributor at THE LOBBYIST:

In a surprise move, Christopher Dodds (D-CT), the senior senator from Connecticut, announced yesterday morning that he would end his 29-year career as one of the nation’s fiercest congressional advocates of big government. The news comes only hours after his comrade, Byron Dorgan(D-ND), the junior senator from North Dakota, announced his own resignation.

“Democrats begin election year on the defensive,” read the online edition of The Washington Post. What is meant by “Democrats,” of course, is not a reference to the Democratic Party as a whole but, more specifically, to those in favor of increased federal regulation, oversight, and control—a distinction that is, unfortunately, rarely made. Meanwhile, the online edition of The New York Times features an informal, yet handsome photo of Marco Rubio, the conservative contender for Florida’s senate seat, with the headline “The First Senator From the Tea Party?” Marco Rubio will face off against Charlie Crist, Florida’s retiring governor. Crist, like Dodds, is an advocate of big government, something that doesn’t seem to sit well with his constituents. The Times reports that “these days not all people are happy with Charlie Crist … [t]o many Republicans, the governor’s biggest sin was his support for the Obama administration’s $787 billion economic-stimulus package.” A win for the “Tea Party” would appear to signal an end to the big government ideals that have dictated the last eighty years of American public policy, and a return to those self-evident truths that form the foundations of classical humanism—that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their creator with those certain unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The turn of the 20th century saw monumental advances in all areas of science and technology. The resulting growth, stemming from the free-thinking, humanist philosophy underlying the American Revolution, produced a standard of living unparalleled by any other epoch. Even the modern poor lived under conditions far superior to the kings of ancient times. With a desire to advance the human condition even further the American population decided, by and through their representatives in Congress, to exchange many of their individual liberties for increased government regulation. Through the creation of powerful government agencies and programs such as the Department of Education and Social Security, it sought to increase prosperity, and raise the standard of living for all. The reverse, unfortunately, proved true; the resulting federal behemoth deterred rather than furthered the human condition, and advances that were made came in spite of, rather than because of, government intervention.

Shall America, then, abandon its desire to advance itself through collective organization? The resounding answer is, of course, no. The communal principles that form the foundation of big government philosophy shall merge with those of classical humanism and individual freedom, and produce a philosophy of independence that shall seek to advance humanity through voluntary efforts, that is, without the compulsion of government regulation or the establishment of government programs. Private organizations and communities are already assuming the responsibilities that were so long believed to pertain exclusively to the federal government. And so, we may look forward to a brighter future and a cleaner, more efficient and, at its heart, more progressive government.

Sporting Saddam Hussein-style approval ratings, the next senator from North Dakota is current governor John Hoeven.

A traditional Midwestern pragmatist, Hoeven is one of many popular center-right governors who have stayed below the radar of national affairs. Together with fellow modern, less-ideological governors like Bobby Jindal and Jodi Rell, Hoeven’s style is proving that quiet governance based upon prudence and responsiveness is what people are looking for — not a revolution.

North Dakota’s unemployment rate is a startlingly low 4.1 percent, the lowest in the nation. This has been assisted by Hoeven’s mostly-hands-off approach to the agriculture, forestry, and game industries, as well as his maintenance of a surplus: one that was sustained enough to allow the state to enact a $400 million package slashing property and income taxes last April.

Hoeven’s political philosophy checks the right boxes for the right-wing base: he is pro-life with the proper caveats (rape and mother’s life), against same-sex marriage and card check, and is a strong supporter of gun rights and additional oil exploration in America. But he also favors the de-federalization of drug laws, increasing spending on education, and committing more funds to infrastructure development. Indeed, during Hoeven’s tenure, the state’s budget has increased dramatically, with bi-partisan support from the state legislature. But little of this has been for pet projects: whatever criticism can be lobbed Hoeven’s way for enacting it, the increased spending has gone mostly toward higher education and infrastructure — broadly-popular measures, by anyone’s standard.

According to a December 2009 Rasmussen poll, Hoeven sports an 87% approval rating after a decade in office. That’s not a typo. He’d have crushed even Byron Dorgan by twenty-two points, and his now-certain entry into the Senate race ensures that the center-right resurgence spearheaded by people like Meg Whitman has found another leader.

In a statement titled, “I Hope Gov. John Hoeven Will Consider Running For U.S. Senate” posted to his Facebook Wednesday evening, former Governor Mike Huckabee wrote:

John Hoeven and I are good friends. I have long admired the way he has governed North Dakota. With our debt skyrocketing and the government takeover of our health care system looming, we need a strong conservative voice in the U.S. Senate.  Yesterday, Democrat Senator Byron Dorgan announced he is retiring from the Senate. I hope John will consider running for this Senate seat. We need his leadership in the Senate.

Background:

North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven is considered the top Republican prospect to fill the seat that will be vacated by current Senator Byron Dorgan who announced his retirement after the 2010 elections earlier this week.

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David Schmidt is the Director of HucksArmy and reachable at david.schmidt@evercor.com, or on Facebook and Twitter

Yemen is not only a new front on the war against islamofascism, but the U.S.-Sunni coalition has begun to fight a proxy war against Iran, in the Saada region of Yemen.  The Sunni governing majority, backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States is fighting certain clans of the Shi’te minority, backed by Iran.

Not only is the Yemeni government involved in two internal wars, but it continues to be confronted with internal political strife that may one day lead to the repartitioning of the country.  If our entry into these Southwestern Arabian conflicts are poorly planned and executed, the current strategic advantage we hold over Iran and Al-Qaeda, will become FUBAR.

Yemen is an extremely complex nation, suffering from what many believe to be irreversible economic and social issues, and deeply rooted ethnic and political divides.  The geopolitical landscape Southwestern Arabia is more enigmatic then in Pashtunistan.

Aside from the extremism, poverty, social discrimination, social exclusion, unemployment, social injustice and social integration issues facing Yemen, it is possible that the Yemenis face the most crippling drug addiction rates of any nation on earth, and it is threatening to set its development back an entire generation.

The video below is possible one of the most disturbing substance dependency stories I have ever seen.  Imagine if 90% of the population of the United States was high on cocaine, constantly.

Khat;

Short-term effects? Compulsive use may result in manic behavior with grandiose delusions or in a paranoid type of illness, sometimes accompanied by hallucinations.

Yemen Background;

• North Yemen Civil War
• South Yemen New Thinking in a Marxist Land – TIME
• Yemeni Civil War – 1994
• Yemen; Egypt’s Vietnam
• Holy smokes, Yemen is Complex!
• CIA Factbook – Yemen

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Kristofer Lorelli is the Senior Editor of Race42012 and can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and Twitter/Kris_Lorelli

Perhaps “love” is too strong a word for my favorable feelings toward Glenn Beck, but I’ll be damned if the man isn’t standing up for solid, classical liberal principles. And he’s surely the only pundit in the media who actually is trying to hold anyone accountable.

An example:

Nancy Pelosi laughed off the reminder by a reporter that Barack Obama promised to air Congressional health care negotiations on C-SPAN by saying “Well, there were a numbers of things said on the campaign trail!”

Hilarious! Except — most of us who follow politics have just come to accept that. Indeed, when I first heard Pelosi, I just took it as an interesting piece of gossip: Was she taking a swipe at Obama? Was she just being frank? What’s going on? Glenn Beck reminds us to be angry at government waste; to not be complacent, to not treat our Congressmen like aristocrats. Beck sees this clip and doesn’t, like most of the chattering classes, say “Wow, look at her take that swipe at Obama!” — How interesting! What is this, Star Magazine? Glenn Beck, in contrast, shouts at the screen: She’s laughing about the fact that they’re lying to you! Who does this? Only the American aristocracy.

Why didn’t I immediately have that reaction, as well? Have I really become so accustomed to sophistry, charlatanism, and irresponsibility that I simply don’t care? Some flaws are inherent in government — and to be accepted as a matter of prudence. But surely we can at least expect our elected officials to let us watch what they’re doing.

Calling that out may not make him popular amongst folks like E.J. Dionne or Dana Milbank, but he can rest easy knowing that he’s actually standing for something meaningful. He’s got his flaws — he’s too theatrical, his rhetoric sometimes hits a discordant note — but at his core, he’s standing for transparency and down-to-Earth government. He asks Americans to think of politics not as a parlor game, but as something having to do with actual governance. Is it any surprise that he’s caused such a stir amongst people whose interests are threatened?

Europe:

• Brown faces leadership ballot call
• Blair’s right-hand men under the spotlight
• Russia’s Fight with Belarus Threatens European Oil Supplies
• Will Europe Trip on Bounce?
• Union presses France to defend A400M program
• French President Orders Study of Body Scanners
• Europe Inflation Accelerates to Fastest in 10 Months
• Slovak security test ends with explosives on plane
• Iceland caught in storm after Icesave veto
• Close race in Ukraine
• Offshore tax amnesty: Liechtenstein route available

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Asia:

• Yemen next? Be very afraid
• A fruitless search for al-Qaeda
• Taiwan bans US beef
• China is now poised to overtake Japan as the world’s second largest economy.
• Israel protests to Britain over arrest threats
• Fiat joins crowd eyeing India’s small car segment
• Software maker sues China on piracy accusation
• The Mongolian Obama? A Discourse of Change
• China, Singapore seek to further military ties
• Uighur tensions persist as Kashgar’s old city is demolished
• China Rejects Call for More UN Sanctions on Iran
• Turkmenistan opens new Iran gas pipeline
• Iran arrests 180 in renewed clampdown: website
• Police warn of terrorism threat behind illegal immigrant issue
• Prince of Brunei’s Harem Girl Tells All (Goldman special)

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Antarctica:

• ‘Whale Wars’ vessel collides with Japanese whaling ship near Antarctica
• Chinese resources chief eyes Antarctica minerals

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Africa:

• Kidnap in Ethiopia
• Zuma’s wives will not vie for “first lady” status (Goldman Special)
• Skin bleaching on the rise in Ivory Coast
• China to forge new strategic partnership with Africa: FM
• US urges Guinea to restore civilian rule
• Sudan’s new year of fear
• Ugandan rebel leader killed in Cent.Africa Republic
• Zimbabwe: Farm Invasions Continue Amid Fears of Military Deployment

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Australasia:

• China-Australia investment ties seen improving in 2010
• Solomons quake, tsunami leaves 1000 homeless
• Clinton to visit Australia, New Zealand, PNG
• Vowing peace for 2010, Fiji land force commander warns regime opponents

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Central/South America:

• Argentina demands resignation of central bank president
• Inertia on US-Latin America Relations
• Cuba: Detained US contractor was spying
• Venezuela Assembly on Possible Colombia Attack
• US offered aid to step down: Micheletti
• Brazil dollar inflows total $28.7 bln in 2009
• CIA: clueless as usual, how scary for Latin America
• Latin America sees its first same-sex marriage
• South America: Media has become a political battleground

Muslim Preacher Arrested

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Kristofer Lorelli is the Senior Editor of Race42012 and can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and Twitter/Kris_Lorelli

Today the NYT put out a long piece on the Florida Senate race.  The interesting bits come at the beginning:

Charlie Crist’s perma-tanned face bears none of the strain you would expect from the archetype of the embattled Republican. Politicians are supposed to keep up appearances, but Crist is especially convincing, one of the more earnest politicians you will see, whether or not he means it.

“Are you kidding? It would be an honor,” the governor of Florida tells a guy wearing a kilt who had asked for a photo.

“Thank you for coming to Pensacola, Governor,” a woman says.

“Call me Charlie,” he insists. “Please! Just call me Charlie. It would be an honor.”

Many things are an honor to Crist — if they are not a “pleasure” or a “privilege.” On a chilly-for-Florida Thursday night in early December, Crist was addressing the annual Lincoln Day Dinner for the local Republican Party in the northwestern outpost of Escambia County in the Florida Panhandle — nearly as close to Cincinnati as it is to Miami…

The people of the Panhandle are “the greatest people I have ever met,” he says. He likes people, no doubt — “the people’s governor” is always reminding “people” how driven he is to help “the people” of Florida, in accordance with the “will of the people” who gave him “the pleasure, the privilege and the honor” to be their governor so he can “help the people.” As recently as last spring, Crist’s standing in Florida and with Republicans nationally was as golden as his skin. But these days not all of the people are happy with Charlie Crist. And a lot of them are in his party…

He is animated in discussing how much he likes his current job. “Thanks to the people, I have this beautiful home in Tallahassee,” he says, placing his hand over his heart.

Yikes.  The disdain practically drips off the computer screen.  Still, it wouldn’t be a NYT article if it expended too much space with tongue-in-cheek jabs at “the moderate”.  The rest of the article- all 8 pages of it- is devoted to mocking tea-partiers and the conservatives so intent on purging Crist from the party.  Crist is an embarrassment, but those who oppose him are worse: crazies.  We get lines on birthers and those opposed to vaccines.  We meet folks who think Obama is a secret Muslim and an open Socialist.

Indeed, only one figure is largely missing from the narrative: Marco Rubio.  This is pretty curious given that the article is titled “The First Senator from the Tea Party”.  We hear a lot about him.  We hear from the people who love him- those crazies I mentioned- but like the title character in Samuel Beckett’s play, the man himself stays strangely on the fringes.  Not until the fourth page is there anything resembling a “portrait” of Rubio and even this is dominated by physical impressions.  Rubio is “barrel-chested”; he looks like “George Stephanopoulus”; he’s a “quivering bundle”.  Almost as afterthought, the writer acknowledges that, “Rubio’s rhetoric is not harsh or personal against the president — less so than I would have expected given his firebrand following”.  Ok…so we’re going to hear more about that…right?  No such luck.  Soon after this paragraph, the piece goes back to miniature profiles of individual tea-partiers.

It’s not hard to imagine that this will be the strategy of outlets like the Times going forward: mock Charlie Crist as a pandering buffoon while attacking Rubio through his supporters.  Under no circumstances must Rubio be allowed to stand or fall on his own merits.  Under no circumstances will they acknowledge that Rubio is running a civil, respectful campaign, which is already neatly pitched to attract independent voters.  Forever will he be that fellow whose advocates suspect reporters of “copying down license plate numbers” (an anecdote the author relates).  They ask in the title if Rubio will be the first “tea-party” Senator, but we should ask ourselves a different question.  Can Marco Rubio become the first candidate supported by the tea-party to step out of its shadow and become a force in his own right?  If he can’t, that bodes ill for both the man and the movement which has adopted him.

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

Apparently the Internal Revenue Service is going to “institute [a] certification program for tax preparers.” This would be hilarious if it wasn’t going to a) raise taxes (or debt) because the IRS will have to create this service; and b) if it wasn’t going to raise the cost of preparing taxes, which of course will fall back on the taxpaying consumer. (One of the morning shows- I forget if it was CNN or Fox- noted the latter today.)

This is the same IRS that has a “goal for fiscal 2010…to answer 71% of calls from taxpayers who have questions about their returns.” It’s also the same IRS that has trouble getting tax money out of federal employees, albeit at a relatively small rate. While I understand the efficiency concerns inherit in the idea of instituting a system such as the one intended, this is mostly another government program designed to increase the size and scope of government. Let’s look at it this way: if the program is not implemented, some people will have bad tax preparers. Some will not. Some preparers will get away with being bad, or unethical, with tax preparation. Some will not. That’s called society. Bad stuff happens.

I managed to find the IRS release about the program. You can see it here. Also, the IRS report upon which the program is based can be seen here. One key statement in the report:

Although GAO and TIGTA could not estimate the number of taxpayers adversely affected, they reported that returns completed by some tax return preparers were inaccurate. In some cases, they found that the tax return preparer failed to perform sufficient due diligence or took positions that the tax return preparer knew were not supportable.

The horror- you mean some people messed up or were dishonest an unknown percentage and amount of the time? (In the interest of full disclosure, I did not read the whole report. I don’t have the time at the moment. Perhaps there is a percentage in there I did not see.)

I’ll close with a comment on the following statement from the IRS release about the report:

Taxpayers need and deserve return preparers who are ethical, fully qualified and able to provide the best possible service. In addition, unethical or incompetent preparers are the most likely to make mistakes or file incorrect returns, adding to non-compliance. Public comments received by the Return Preparer Review overwhelmingly expressed support for increased oversight of paid preparers, particularly those who are not attorneys, certified public accountants or others authorized to practice before the IRS.

I wonder what would happen if the millions of people who don’t like the IRS contacted it and requested its abolition? If calls were “overwhelmingly” in favor of the Fair Tax, would the IRS pay attention? After all, don’t we deserve the best, fairest and most efficient tax system possible?

Update: Ogrepete noted the following in the comments section:

Disclosure, I’m a Certified Public Accountant who prepares income tax returns for business and indviduals and contacts the IRS and State Revenue Departments on an almost daily basis.

Quoting from the National Taxpayer Advocate report to Congress for 2009 which is here… http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/09_tas_arc_exec_summary.pdf. See page 5 of the document for the following quotes.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), and other organizations have conducted undercover visits to tax
preparers in recent years and found extremely high rates of error and misconduct. Using two fairly straightforward tax patterns, GAO found that preparers computed the wrong
tax amount in 17 of 19 visits, with five returns showing unwarranted excess refunds of nearly $2,000 and two returns requiring the GAO “taxpayer” to pay over $1,500 more in
tax than he actually owed. In ten cases, the preparers failed to report side income, and in several cases, they explicitly advised the GAO “taxpayer” that reporting the side income was
unnecessary because the IRS would have no way to discover it. The results of the TIGTA study are equally concerning. To protect taxpayers and improve return accuracy, the National Taxpayer Advocate has repeatedly recommended that the IRS develop a strategy to improve preparer competence, visibility, and accountability.

Getting it wrong 17 out of 19 times is horrible and unacceptable. Those of us who “get it right” end up paying for those who “got it wrong.”

Here is what the National Taxpayer Advocate recommends…

The National Taxpayer Advocate recommends that the IRS develop a comprehensive return preparer strategy that includes: (1) a requirement that all persons who prepare tax
returns and interact with taxpayers obtain and use a unique identifying number (known as a PTIN); (2) a requirement that all unenrolled preparers pass an examination that tests basic return preparation knowledge and thereafter complete periodic continuing education courses; (3) a public awareness campaign to inform taxpayers of preparer requirements; (4) creation of a publicly available database listing all certified preparers; (5) a large-scale program of IRS preparer visits; and (6) due diligence requirements covering areas of significant noncompliance.

As long as Congress is going to increase complexity of tax rules every year, it makes sense to require that paid preparers be somewhat versed in those rules. Better yet would be to simplify the whole dang thing so the vast majority of people can do their own tax returns in less than an hour.

Disclosure, I’m a Certified Public Accountant who prepares income tax returns for business and indviduals and contacts the IRS and State Revenue Departments on an almost daily basis.

Rasmussen Arkansas Senatorial Survey

• Gilbert Baker 51% [47%] (47%)
• Blanche Lincoln 39% [41%] (39%)

• Kim Hendren 47% [46%] (44%)
• Blanche Lincoln 39% [39%] (41%)

• Curtis Coleman 48% [44%] (43%)
• Blanche Lincoln 38% [40%] (41%)

• Tom Cox 48% [43%] (43%)
• Blanche Lincoln 38% [40%] (40%)

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Gilbert Baker 42% [40%] (39%) / 20% [19%] (27%) {+22%}
• Kim Hendren 37% [41%] (38%) / 20% [19%] (22%) {+17%}
• Blanche Lincoln 38% [43%] (45%) / 56% [52%] (52%) {-18%}

How would you rate the job Barack Obama has been doing as President?

• Strongly approve 20% [21%] (28%)
• Somewhat approve 18% [13%] (9%)
• Somewhat disapprove 8% [14%] (10%)
• Strongly disapprove 53% [51%] (52%)

Generally speaking, do you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and the congressional Democrats?

• Strongly favor 17% [18%] (20%)
• Somewhat favor 18% [14%] (10%)
• Somewhat oppose 9% [9%] (15%)
• Strongly oppose 51% [56%] (52%)

If the health care reform plan passes, should individual states have the right to opt out of the entire plan?

• Yes 55%
• No 30%

Overall, how would you rate President Obama’s handling of the situation in Afghanistan?

• Excellent 13%
• Good 18%
• Fair 28%
• Poor 40%

How would you rate the job Mike Beebe has been doing as Governor?

• Strongly approve 23% [23%] (27%)
• Somewhat approve 45% [47%] (42%)
• Somewhat disapprove 21% [22%] (22%)
• Strongly disapprove 8% [6%] (8%)

Survey of 500 likely voters was conducted January 5, 2010. The margin of error is +/- 4.5 percentage points. Results from the poll conducted December 1, 2009 are in square brackets. Results from the poll conducted September 28, 2009 are in parentheses.

PPP (D) Connecticut Senatorial Survey

If the candidates for US Senate this fall were Democrat Richard Blumenthal and Republican Rob Simmons, who would you vote for?

• Richard Blumenthal 59%
• Rob Simmons 28%

If the candidates for US Senate this fall were Democrat Richard Blumenthal and Republican Linda McMahon, who would you vote for?

• Richard Blumenthal 60%
• Linda McMahon 28%

If the candidates for US Senate this fall were Democrat Richard Blumenthal and Republican Peter Schiff, who would you vote for?

• Richard Blumenthal 63%
• Peter Schiff 23%

If the candidates for US Senate this fall were Democrat Chris Murphy and Republican Rob Simmons, who would you vote for?

• Chris Murphy 42%
• Rob Simmons 35%

If the candidates for US Senate this fall were Democrat Chris Murphy and Republican Linda McMahon, who would you vote for?

• Chris Murphy 43%
• Linda McMahon 36%

If the candidates for US Senate this fall were Democrat Chris Murphy and Republican Peter Schiff, who would you vote for?

• Chris Murphy 44%
• Peter Schiff 28%

If the candidates for US Senate this fall were Democrat Chris Dodd and Republican Rob Simmons, who would you vote for?

• Rob Simmons 44%
• Chris Dodd 40%

If the candidates for US Senate this fall were Democrat Chris Dodd and Republican Linda McMahon, who would you vote for?

• Linda McMahon 43%
• Chris Dodd 43%

If the candidates for US Senate this fall were Democrat Chris Dodd and Republican Peter Schiff, who would you vote for?

• Chris Dodd 44%
• Peter Schiff 37%

Favorable / Unfavorable {Net}

• Richard Blumenthal 59% / 19% {+40%}
• Chris Murphy 30% / 21% {+9%}
• Rob Simmons 27% / 24% {+3%}
• Linda McMahon 26% / 29% {-3%}
• Peter Schiff 9% / 13% {-4%}

Do you approve or disapprove of Senator Chris Dodd’s job performance?

• Approve 29%
• Disapprove 57%

Do you approve or disapprove of Barack Obama’s job performance?

• Approve 54%
• Disapprove 38%

Among Independents

• Approve 47%
• Disapprove 47%

Do you support or oppose President Obama’s health care plan?

• Approve 47%
• Disapprove 43%

Among Independents

• Approve 38%
• Disapprove 52%

Survey of 522 Connecticut voters was conducted January 4-5, 2010. The margin of error is +/- 4.3 percentage points. Party ID breakdown: 46% Democrat; 26% Republican; 29% Independent. Political ideology: 44% Moderate; 31% Conservative; 25% Liberal.

Some highlights of an interview with Ann and Mitt Romney that aired on Fox.

Romney says President Obama should be more like President Clinton, when asked about Obama’s fallen approval ratings: “You know, I had higher hopes for him. I knew he was a smart individual. I thought that he would learn that governing from the middle was the right way to go, as President Clinton learned in his second term,

-

Essential Reading – Mitt Romney;

• Can Mitt Romney Come Back?
• Mitt already gearing up for 2012? Who’s Next?
• Ann Romney: ‘I Was Really Lucky’; Speaks Up For Mammograms

_____________________________________________

Kristofer Lorelli is the Senior Editor of Race42012 and can be contacted at lorville@rogers.com, on Facebook and Twitter/Kris_Lorelli

UPDATE: Okay – my prediction was wrong – feel free to gloat. Though I will say that Hannity was dropping Brown talk all day – once in the same breath as Palin – and then he didn’t ask! WHY, SEAN, WHY?!! 

—- 

Via Twitter:

@seanhannity: Guest today – @SarahPalinUSA hope you all tune in!

Now, normally this wouldn’t justify a post until we know the content of the interview. However, I think this particular one could be big. Maybe I’m inferring too much here – but Hannity is going gaga over the Scott Brown campaign in Massachusetts and had Brown on the program yesterday. Even if it’s not the reason for the interview (which it might be), I have a difficult time seeing Sean getting through the entire segment without asking Gov. Palin about the race in Massachusetts. In fact, he would be a bad interviewer if he failed to ask about it – as it is one of the biggest stories in the country at the moment and ties in nicely with yesterday’s slew of Democratic retirements.

So – ready or not, planned or not - I’m guessing that we may have a Palin endorsement for Scott Brown by the end of the day. Are you ready for the tsunami?

Politico’s Josh Kraushaar reports that Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal will announce his candidacy for Chris Dodd’s seat today.

Politico is just out with an article detailing a Pelosi jab at Obama:

Pelosi emerged from a meeting with her leadership team and committee chairs in the Capitol to face an aggressive throng of reporters who immediately hit her with C-SPAN’s request that she permit closed-door final talks on the bill to be televised.

A reporter reminded the San Francisco Democrat that in 2008, then-candidate Obama opined that all such negotiations be open to C-SPAN cameras.

“There are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail,” quipped Pelosi, who has no intention of making the deliberations public.

Later on in the same article is this gem:

During a White House meeting Tuesday, Obama told the speaker and other congressional leaders that he would like to see them approve a final bill by his State of the Union address, set for late January or early February. Earlier in the day, House Democrats weren’t convinced they could meet that deadline — and seemed ambivalent about whether they even wanted to try.

(emphasis mine)

It would appear that his fellow Democrats are not exactly over-awed by President Obama anymore. This is hardly surprising and entirely predictable. Being elected leader and then abdicating your agenda to others has consequences even for “The One”. Making a fool of yourself on the world stage doesn’t help, either. Plunging polls only part of the story. Obama has lost that air of “invincibility”. He is a mere mortal now.

Increasingly as the November elections loom, the Democrats will be looking out for themselves more than the prima donna residing at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. How a narcissist like Obama handles this loss of prestige and clout promises to make 2010 an interesting year.

Yup.

Republicans look like they’ve landed their top recruit in the North Dakota Senate race: Popular Gov. John Hoeven is letting his political allies know that he’s preparing to run for the seat of retiring Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.)

North Dakota Republican party chairman Gary Emineth told POLITICO that he spoke with Hoeven’s senior staff soon after learning of Dorgan’s retirement, and they informed him that Hoeven is preparing to jump in the Senate race once he deals with family issues back home.

“I expect Gov. Hoeven to get in, and he’s going to work through personal issues relating to his family, but I would be shocked if he’s not in the Senate race soon,” Emineth said. “He’s been showing signs of running and getting things cued up in preparation for a decision. It’s inevitable, and the decision by Dorgan showed he was expecting Governor Hoeven to get into the race.”

Hoeven’s decision gives Republicans an excellent shot at winning back the Senate seat in the solidly Republican state.

He won a third term in 2008 with 74 percent of the vote, running well ahead of John McCain, who took 53 percent statewide in the presidential race.

Hoeven, who is serving his ninth year in Bismarck and is the longest-serving chief executive in the country, has benefited from the state’s relative economic prosperity in the midst of the recession. North Dakota has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country.

The Wonk Room, which is part of the Center for American Progress- a liberal think tank fashioned after The Heritage Foundation- has a post defending the lack of transparency in the melding of the House and Senate bills. The full post follows:

C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb is challenging Democrats to keep their campaign promise and “open all important negotiations, including any conference committee meetings, to electronic media.” “President Obama, Senate and House leaders, many of your rank-and-file members, and the nation’s editorial pages have all talked about the value of transparent discussions on reforming the nation’s health care system,” Lamb says in a letter to Congress. “Now that the process moves to the critical stage of reconciliation between the Chambers, we respectfully request that you allow the public full access, through television, to legislation that will affect the lives of every single American.”

At first glance, Lamb’s request sounds reasonable, even righteous. After all, C-SPAN is grounded in the belief that transparency produces superior legislation. And maybe a certain level of transparency does. But if one actually considers the tone and tenor of the televised health care debate of 2009, filming the conference negotiations seems counterproductive.

The C-SPAN letter itself betrays this reality. “Since the initial introduction of America’s Affordable Health Care Act of 2009, in the House and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in the Senate, C-SPAN has televised literally hundreds of hours of committee hearings, mark ups and floor debate on these bills for the public to see,” it reminds us. On the whole, C-SPAN’s coverage informed and entertained the viewer. But did it improve the underlying bill?

Consider the Senate floor debate. Rather than filling the 24 days of televised discussions with constructive and informative amendments, Democrats and Republicans recycled charts and talking points like re-usable shopping bags. Lawmakers spent days debating the Medicare cuts they supported in years past, denouncing scientific research, and introducing sense of the Senate resolutions promising to provide and protect America’s most active constituency — seniors. Senators from both party played to the cameras. Grandstanding, launching unnecessary rhetorical attacks, but barely tweaking the bill on the Senate floor. The real substantive change, if you’ll recall, came in the form of Reid’s amendment (and when he merged the two Senate bills). At times, the rhetoric on the floor sounded like cable news chatter. The real discussions and compromises — Sens. Lieberman’s and Nelsons objections, for instance — were reserved for private discussions; incidentally, the two Senators didn’t appear on the Senate floor until the 60-vote deal was struck.

It’s no exaggeration to claim that health care reform is only possible because of the ritualistic ping-pong back and forth that occurs through private conversations. Lawmakers eschew substantive televised negotiations because the reality of politics doesn’t square with the promises of the campaign trail; negotiations give lawmakers a conciliatory hue that’s unwelcome in the current political climate of machismo.

The introduction of cameras into the daily White House press briefings, for instance, hasn’t produced a better understanding of administration policy or more informative media coverage. Rather, it created an additional opportunity for political theater and posturing. “It has turned into a theater of the absurd,” Mike McCurry, President Bill Clinton’s press secretary, told the New York Times. “Reporters can be perfectly civil and launch good, hard-hitting questions” in private…then in the briefing room two minutes later, “they turn into barbarians,” President George W. Bush’s first press secretary Ari Fleischer added. In the modern media environment, even small inconsequential events or statements are often transformed into meta narratives or political attacks that can alter the behavior of politicians in ways that serve to undermine the legislative process, the article claims, noting the atmosphere of mutual mistrust that characterizes the interactions between the public, lawmakers, and the press.

Turning the conference committee into another Senate floor debate won’t improve health reform legislation. The televised conference hearings will become a drawn out theatrical sideshow — the real discussions will still occur behind closed doors.

The public should have ample opportunity to review the final product before the vote, but when it comes to legislating, transparency is overrated. Changing Washington’s political culture requires far deeper systematic reforms than C-SPAN television. The hard politics isn’t pretty enough for TV.

Update Ezra Klein is “conflicted over C-SPAN’s request to televise all negotiations related to the merging of the House and Senate bills” but points out that “What C-SPAN is offering isn’t transparency. It’s the illusion of transparency.”

Update Matt Yglesias agrees that “letting TV cameras into conference committee negotiations is a terrible idea.

I was dumbfounded after reading this, I must admit. The post makes legitimate points that most of the work on bills is done behind the scenes, and that given the raucus and unintelligent way much of the debate has gone on both sides- see here and here for bipartisan examples- giving senators and representatives more bill-irrelevant time on television is more akin to cable news than real governing and legislating. However, as one commenter below the post put it,

C-SPAN isn’t asking to change Washington’s political climate. It’s merely asking that the Obama specifically, keep a campaign promise, and the Democrats in general, to live up to their self-appointed harbingers of transparency to Congress. We are talking about nearly 16% of the economy after all.

I guess transparency in favor of liberal policies is overrated, even as campaign promises. Or are they still stuck on the Obama Kool-Aid over at CAP?

Another Wonk Room commenter gets it right (except for his comment about Republicans) for a different reason: 

Its good that no one has commented on this yet, hopefully it means no one has read it. The idea that a front line “progressive” organization is apologizing for the decision to break campaign promises to hold debate in the public is disappointing. That you used the Republican meme about democracy being hard and messy to do it is just disgusting.

So what if Representatives grandstand or are unhelpful to the process, that is all a part of how democracy is supposed to work. We voters can and do take that into account when making voting decisions.

Or, to put it another way, democratic republics are nasty pieces of work because they are accountable to the citizens of that republic. Perhaps the author of this piece, one Igor Volsky, would prefer the lack of transparency in Iran, Russia and other less-free and less-democratic nations? He could, if he wanted to help matters, educate people on the process, the likely bill to come out of the discussions and other matters instead of whining that a news channel wants- brace yourselves- an open and transparent discussion of a bill. (Shocker.)

I read Think Progress- another CAP project- a couple of times a week, and have read The Wonk Room two or three times. They both generally have quality posts and analysis, but this one is just ridiculous. Unfortunately, it gets worse. Matthew Yglesias, who writes for Think Progress, goes so far as to say:

The fact of the matter is that if Barack Obama had never promised a more open legislative process, he would have won the election anyway. What’s more, going forward members of congress and the administration need to recognize that they’ll be judged on the basis of the results they deliver for people’s lives. If everything is terrible on Election Day then no matter how much the process is reformed, it’s still going to look corrupt and horrible to people. But if conditions are good and improving, then these process concerns will have a way of fading away.

There’s an interesting philosophical dispute about what should be done with unwise campaign promises. On the one hand, it’s more honorable to live by one’s commitments. But more fundamentally, it strikes me as the better part of valor to admit error, take the hit for flip-flopping, and forge ahead without doing anything silly.

A number of things are wrong with this post. I will make it brief, as I have gone well over the word usage I originally intended:

1. President Obama won by being the anti-Bush. One of the biggest hits on former President Bush behind Iraq, spending and the economy was his seeming inability to be transparent, at least in the eyes of many voters. To claim that President Obama would have won by promising to continue behind-closed-doors procedure would have turned a number of moderates and independents away from him.

2. On Election Day, people do tend to look at what is going on around them. However, one can lose without looking corrupt and horrible- see the losing presidential campaign of Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) in 2008, for example, or the overly-transparent presidential campaign of former representative Thomas Tancredo (R-CO). Secondly, Yglesias is correct that on Election Day people will ignore corruption and the like if things look good. Perhaps Yglesias should work on reforming the process so it can look and be good, instead of encouraging outright manipulation of the voter.

3. I ask Yglesias to cite me when and/or where Mr. Transparency (President Obama) or “Bipartisan” Pelosi have, or shown intentions of being willing to, ”admit error, take the hit for flip-flopping, and forge ahead without doing anything silly.” Seems to me they have skipped the first two parts of the process.

CAP has been growing in influence since its inception, and has been even more powerful since President Obama was elected. It’s unfortunate that its influence and intellectualism are wasted on the dangerous precipice that is supporting behind-closed-doors secrecy on this kind of non-emergency, non-vital-to-national-security legislation. Conservative or liberal, Green Party or Tea Party, CAP and its associated projects should support transparency- or not- on a consistent basis. Its influence alone should dictate that it hold all administrations to the same level of honesty and transparency. Perhaps an old Think Progress post written in 2005 of Bush’s lack of transparency will jog CAP’s memory, or a paper written December 10, 2009 by CAP’s own Ken Gude about national security secrecy in both the Obama and Bush administrations.

“(H/T to Real Clear Politics for The Wonk Room post.)

Not one, not two, but THREE  major Democratic retirements in 24 hours!

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter joins Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) in cancelling his re-election plans. Actually, this news broke Earlier than either Dorgan or Dodd – but most of us national people missed it in the hubbub.

This could be good or bad. If former State House Speaker Andrew Romanoff cancels his primary challenge to Sen. Michael Bennet and switches to the gubernatorial race – I can’t see him doing better than Ritter against former GOP Congressman Scott McInnis. However, if Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper decides to ride into the race on a white horse – things could get screwy in a hurry.

On a personal note – I was a Colorado College Republican during then-District Attorney Ritter’s first campaign for the Governor’s chair. So,  I regret that we will no longer be able to use the striped jailbird suits or the “Felons for Ritter” and “Hugs for Thugs” placards.

Equilibrium restored. As we gain in North Dakota, we lose in Connecticut:

Embattled Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd (D) has scheduled a press conference at his home in Connecticut Wednesday at which he is expected to announce he will not seek re-election, according to sources familiar with his plans.

Dodd’s retirement comes after months of speculation about his political future, and amid faltering polling numbers and a growing sense among the Democratic establishment that he could not win a sixth term. It also comes less than 24 hours after Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) announced he would not seek re-election.

State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is widely expected to step into the void filled by Dodd and, at least at first blush, should drastically increase Democrats’ chances of holding the seat.

Damn! That’s truly a shame. Rob Simmons now has a truly uphill fight. Every Republican in this race is surely clenching his (or her, Ms. McMahon) fists in unmitigated frustration right now. As am I — this has been such a bright prospect to get a non-Maine Republican senator elected in the Northeast. Guess I’ve got to pin my hopes on Scott Brown now.

(h/t Tommy Boy)

Oftentimes, when someone deems another’s work wise, they are really complimenting — themselves.

The grand narrative of politics often bears little relation to what is actually happening; it is, rather, a complete improvisation put on by actors who wrote their scripts in advance without looking at what the others were writing. We have all been confused at one time or another in our jobs — politicians, being human beings, are not immune to this. Working with dozens of others only augments this awful dysfunction. A narrative is by necessity an extreme oversimplification to make up for our lack of knowledge.

One of the reasons that America is hated by so many is that its mystique is lost. We insist that we must be taken seriously by France, Germany, and Spain, forgetting that their political system and national culture are infected with the same terrible vices common to all Western societies. But they track our every move. We do not reciprocate. Thus, we are plagued with the same allure of the cliched Westerner who seeks to escape materialism by heading to the East — as he idealizes it in his mind. A postmodernist might refer to it as “‘The Other’ Syndrome.” I simply think of it as caricature as a shortcut to alleged knowledge.

All national-level politicians have large egos, by definition; there is a certain amount of gall required to announce that you think yourself fit to lead the free world or to legislate on behalf of millions. Sometimes it is merited; more often, it is not. But as a nation, we don’t know how to discern the difference, since authority is often based upon appearances rather than merits.

Our federal government runs an open conspiracy of ignorance. We lack the tools to analyze our politicians’ rhetoric. The laws that they create are wrapped in legal jargon, our school system does not teach us to think critically, and aspiring politicians infantilize the public by talking down to them in hoary cliches and mundane rhetoric. “Government must be put back on the side of the people.” — This is a literally meaningless phrase.

I have always loathed the phrase “the people.” It stinks of collectivist ideology. This ugly phrase is found in documents ranging from the Constitution to the Communist Manifesto. Worse, as a piece of language, it has no meaning whatsoever. “The people” are not a whole body and cannot have a “general will.” Rhetorically speaking, to be on the side of “the people” means nothing more than to be on the side of what’s good.

Business is usually the trailblazer in social equality. Let us not forget that segregation, for instance, was a government-imposed policy created after Reconstruction. Southern buses never segregated until the force of government demanded it. There was no economic incentive to segregate buses, because capitalism knows one color, and it ain’t white. Only the force of government could have created such a bizarre system of discrimination. Today, Fortune 500 companies lead the way in offering benefits to same-sex couples, while government lags behind.

If you dislike a business’ service, you can take your patronage elsewhere. If you dislike a government’s service, get in line and try not to complain too much. But by all means, let’s talk about how it’s vital that this is the system that upholds our children’s education.

Language games: “As soon as a truth is disputed, it becomes dogma.” – GK Chesterson

More language games: If you like something, deem it a right. If you dislike something, deem it a privilege held by the elite enemies of the people. The assumption that anything desirable is a right comes from the culture of entitlement.

More language games: my father, who works for the post office, tells me that it is not a taxpayer-funded institution, since no money is appropriated to it in Congress. All money given to it is voluntary. This is completely incorrect except in the context of manipulating language; stamps fund the Post Office, one can only send a letter with a stamp, and one can only send a letter through the Post Office. If a private business tried to pull a scheme like this, is there any doubt that liberals would condemn it as a monopoly? Liberals have no problems with monopolies as long as the state holds them.

Belief in positive rights does not necessarily lead to governmental intervention. One could simply say that one has a right to health care, and that if others don’t provide it, they are abdicating their duties. This is how proponents of virtue operate, for instance: they rarely demand it be enforced by the state. It should be clear by now that the illogical doctrine of positive rights is really just a backdoor philosophical justification for baser ideological motivations.

Santayana once said that to believe that life is worth living is a required axiom for all further thought, but something that further thought would surely not support. The latter contention seems to me surely wrong — it as if one were to state that the point of eating a meal is to finish it, rather than enjoy it.

With the health care battle far from over, word has it that President Obama also plans to tackle the issue of immigration this year:

Already, senior White House aides have privately assured Latino activists that the president will back legislation in 2010 to provide a road to citizenship for the estimated 12 million undocumented workers now living in the United States.

In a conference call with proponents, White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, political director Patrick Gaspard and others recently delivered the message that the White House is committed to seeing a substantial immigration bill pass and wants to make sure allies are prepared for the fight.

In addition to the citizenship provision, the emerging plan will stress increased efforts to harden borders to make illegal entry more difficult. But that two-track approach has been rejected in the past by Republicans and other critics who insisted a border crackdown demonstrate its effectiveness before any action on citizenship could be considered.

As recently as the George W. Bush administration, efforts to win congressional approval for coupling the two issues were repeatedly stymied. And whatever proposal Obama eventually puts forward is likely to trigger equally determined opposition, especially with next November’s congressional elections looming.

That makes embracing an immigration bill a significant gamble for the White House, which already has job creation, global warming curbs, and new regulations for financial institutions on the agenda for 2010.

Adding to the difficulty, polls show that the public is far more worried about the 10% unemployment rate and the fragile economy than anything else. By pushing an immigration bill, Obama risks appearing out of step with the everyday worries of the typical voter.

…Bipartisan support is possible. Schumer’s office said he is working with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to develop a bill and wants Graham to sign on as a co-sponsor. Graham’s office did not return calls for comment.

Democrats may not have a lock on one prominent Republican who wanted to revamp the immigration system in the past: McCain, who backed George W. Bush’s failed attempt to overhaul immigration in the second term. The Arizona senator has not committed to supporting the Obama bill, saying he worries that the president will not endorse a temporary guest worker program.

Organized labor, an important part of the Democratic base, has voiced opposition to a guest worker program under which more immigrant workers could enter the country on a temporary basis. Critics argue that there is no effective system for assuring that such workers leave the country when their entry permits expire.

Well, one certainly can’t fault the President for laziness. More seriously, I don’t see how the White House can reasonably expect to piece together enough support for such a contentious issue (we all remember the 2007 immigration fight) in an election year, when Congress will also have to reach a final decision on health care.

So this would have been (sort of) breaking if I hadn’t had to go to the gym and miss the opportunity- darn you, Kavon and Alex, for having lives…

Anyway, my two cents on Dorgan’s retirement:

From The Washington Post’s The Fix: “Democrats acknowledged privately that Dorgan’s decision was a significant blow although they quickly pivoted to note that the party would field a candidate. The only obvious name for Democrats is Rep. Earl Pomeroy who has held the state’s at-large seat since 1992 when Dorgan ascended to the Senate.”

From the National Republican Senatorial Committee: “”North Dakota was always going to be a competitive seat for the Democrats to defend, and Senator Dorgan’s retirement now provides us with another excellent pick-up opportunity for Republicans in 2010. This development is indicative of the difficult environment and slumping approval ratings that Democrats face as a result of their out of control tax-and-spend agenda in Washington, and we fully intend to capitalize on this opportunity by continuing to recruit strong candidates who can win these seats in November.” – Brian Walsh, NRSC Communications Director”

This should be really interesting. My uncle is the Chief of Staff for Representative Earl Pomeroy (D-ND), and so I have a more-than-passing interest in the state’s politics. My friend Shawn, a resident of North Dakota, is one of many who thinks governor John Hoeven is the strongest candidate for Republicans to run this year. Hopefully, he does, and sends the Democrats a strong message in North Dakota that voting for Democratic initiatives like this health care reform effort is a bad thing. (Both senators from the state- Dorgen and Conrad- and Pomeroy voted for their respective chamber’s bill.)

From THE LOBBYIST.

The South Carolina legislature is just now preparing a formal rebuke to Mark Sanford?

South Carolina lawmakers voted Wednesday to formally rebuke Gov. Mark Sanford for secret trips to see his Argentine mistress and misuse of state planes.

One of the visits was in 2008 during a taxpayer-funded trip to South America that was supposed to be an economic development mission. The other was in June, when Sanford disappeared from the state and left no one in charge.

The House Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a rebuke that says the governor brought “ridicule, dishonor, disgrace and shame” to the state. Members agreed with a smaller panel’s decision a week earlier that Sanford’s missteps did not warrant impeachment.The larger committee voted down an effort to remove him 18-6, despite pleas from some members to let the full House vote on impeachment.

“A vote for censure is not an endorsement for the governor’s conduct,” said state Rep. James Smith, D-Columbia, who argued an impeachment trial would be a distraction when the state has more important things to worry about. “It’s quite the contrary.”

This was months ago! If this were a corporation and the CEO dipped his fingers into the company funds to pay for private trips, he’d be ousted the next day — or have resigned in disgrace. Mark Sanford robbed the taxpayers. He should be impeached and convicted. Instead, it has taken months to do so much as censure him. Only government, folks…

What are the messages that the GOP should take away from this announcement? There are three ways of looking at this, as I see it.

1. It means nothing. Dorgan would have retired, anyway. People do have lives outside of politics, after all, and Dorgan rightly notes that teaching and writing are passions of his that he needs time outside of the Senate to pursue seriously. Besides, he was safe for re-election, so why on Earth would this indicate anything about 2010? Maybe if he were a Blue Dog in the House, or if he were Barbara Boxer, this would mean something, but he was as safe as Barbara Mikulski.

2. Hoeven decided to run. Polls show the hyper-popular Governor Hoeven crushing Dorgan in a one-on-one match-up. They are both known commodities, and Dorgan surely recognizes that closing a twenty-point gap is next to impossible. If Hoeven has decided to run, he might have done the polite thing and tipped off Dorgan to ask him whether he wanted to save any face. However, this doesn’t really mean anything outside of itself on a national level — this is all due to state-level politics. Nobody but Hoeven could beat Dorgan, and Hoeven wouldn’t be winning out of anger at the Democrats or because he has an R next to his name, but because he’s universally seen as a competent governor.

3. It means everything. If entrenched senators, presumed to be safe, are headed for the exit, then this clearly means something big for our mid-term prospects. Couple this with the Blue Dog retirees and the Griffith switch, and a storm is brewing. This is just the beginning of the exciting announcements that we’re in for. The key here is that this is not an isolated incident.

I’m more inclined to view this as one of the first two.

His hand-picked Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer has just announced he is resigning. Of course he did it while attacking the conservatives who have made Crist’s Senatorial campaign rather problematic recently. Where Crist was once considered a shoe-in, he is now neck and neck with Rubio in some polls.

It’s a remarkable fall from grace for one of the governor’s leading confidants — one who was on the list of prospective appointees to fill the state’s recent Senate vacancy, and who openly contemplated a bid for chairman of the Republican National Committee last year.

Greer’s resignation is a major blow to Crist, who until recently had been publicly defending his handpicked chairman even as he lost public support from grass-roots activists and legislators. As he faces a contentious Senate primary, he will see a political ally replaced with a longtime conservative legislator who recently attended a fundraiser for his upstart primary rival, Marco Rubio, and who hails from the Jeb Bush wing of the Florida GOP.

“This is a body blow to Charlie Crist. It reflects the very different realities of Florida politics that exist today than that existed when Jim Greer was [elected] chairman,” said a senior Florida Republican operative.

“Greer was perceived as a single-issue Crist supporter who really wasn’t helping the base motivation or fundraising.”

“The governor has not asked me to step down, and continues to support me throughout this process because he knows the facts,” Greer said in his resignation announcement.

But behind the scenes, Crist was receiving significant pressure during the past several weeks from state legislative leaders, according to several Tallahassee insiders. They informed the governor that Greer was hurting both Crist’s Senate candidacy and the state party, and that things would get worse if he wasn’t removed.

And as significant as were the closed-door complaints from GOP legislators, another important party constituency made clear that they had had it with Greer. Last week, 10 of the party’s top bundlers and donors wrote a letter calling for Greer’s resignation amid allegations of mismanaged party finances. These donors, including such major national figures as Mel Sembler and Al Hoffman, said they weren’t willing to spend any more of their money to help the party with Greer at the helm.

Complaints from conservative activists were one thing, but when the pressure came from elected officials and moneymen Greer had little choice but to resign.

“When major donors see that some of the biggest Wall Street names are withholding their money, that was going to cause the party financial trouble,” said Johnson.

CQ Politics has the scoop:

Third-term Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) dropped a bombshell Tuesday evening when he announced he will retire rather than running for re-election in 2010, ending a political career that began in the 1960s.

The departure of the influential moderate, who chairs the Indian Affairs committee, gives Republicans a major opportunity to take the seat in the Republican-leaning state. The party had been trying to woo Gov. John Hoeven, who is term-limited from office this year, into challenging Dorgan and this could cement his candidacy.

In a statement, Dorgan said he came to the decision over the holidays. “It is a hard decision to make after thirty years in the Congress, but I believe it is the right time for me to pursue … other interests,” he said.

“Although I still have a passion for public service and enjoy my work in the Senate, I have other interests and I have other things I would like to pursue outside of public life,” he continued. “I have written two books and have an invitation from a publisher to write two more books. I would like to do some teaching and would also like to work on energy policy in the private sector.”

He also made a point of underscoring that his decision “has no relationship to the prospect of a difficult election contest this year.

In light of this announcement, I am adjusting my New Year’s prediction of a GOP pickup of six in the Senate next November to seven.