PROFOUND DISCONNECT OF US CONGRESS REPS WITH THEIR CONSTITUENTS.

By Frosty Wooldridge

Our U.S. Congress causes most Americans of both parties intellectual trauma, emotional fits and mental anguish.  Every week, 545 individuals misdirect, obfuscate, cloud, suppress, deny or avoid dealing with serious issues facing our civilization.   Fact: they don’t solve much, but they do perpetuate most of our problems.

You might read a compelling piece, “545 PEOPLE” by Charlie Reese that explains their profound disconnect with America, with her values, with her people and with the principles of the U.S. Constitution. 

Reese said, “Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.  Have you ever wondered if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, why do we have deficits?  Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, why do we have inflation and high taxes?”

Since 80 percent of the American people stand against both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, why have those wars continued for nine years at a cost of $1 trillion and incredible loss of life and misery?  It’s beyond the scope of rational thinking or logical reasoning.  Are those 545 crazy or are we crazy to keep electing them?

Everything going wrong in America today stems from their decisions in Washington DC.  Yet, like lemmings, we continue voting them back into office. 

Problems they have perpetuated:

1. 20 million Americans cannot secure a job. (Source: Brian Williams, NBC)
2. 35 million Americans subsist on food stamps. (Source: “One in eight Americans living on food stamps: 35 million”, Huffington Post, 11/29/09)
3. 13.4 million American children live in poverty. (Source: Katie Couric, NBC)
4. 20 million illegal aliens work and live in America in violation of U.S. laws. (Source: www.cis.org; www.numbersusa.com)
5. $12 trillion national debt.
6. Influx of 2.4 million legal and illegal immigrants annually. (Source: www.fairus.org ; www.thesocialcontract.com)
7. Annual cost of immigrants to U.S. taxpayers: $346 billion. (Source: Edwin Rubenstein Report, www.thesocialcontract.com)
8. Millions suffering home foreclosures. (Source: CNN)
9. $700 billion annual trade deficit. (Source: Department of Commerce)
10. Educational breakdown across the country with as high as 76 percent dropout rates in major cities like Detroit, Michigan. (Source: Time Magazine, “Tragedy of Detroit”)

The list grows; it doesn’t diminish. It expands; it gets worse.  The problems mount; but the Congress fiddles.

LET US UNDERSTAND AN EXAMPLE OF AN INDIVIDUAL CONGRESSMAN

You may think that writing or calling your Congress critter would bring  solutions, rational decision making, and use of common sense for the common good.  You would be wrong.  You will receive a form letter.

I wrote my Congressman Mike Coffman and two senators Mike Bennet and Mark Udall in Colorado.

I mentioned that we needed to change the annual 1.2 million legal immigrants down to 100,000 a year, which worked from 1924 to 1964, in order to allow our civilization to become stable and sustainable.  We do not need to add another 100 million people to this country within 25 years, most of it via immigration.  Straight forward common sense! 

Coffman wrote back, “I do not believe it is in the best interests to limit legal immigration to 100,000 individuals annually.”

“According to a study from the nation's largest food bank operator, the number of Americans in need of food aid has jumped 46 percent in three years, including a 50 percent jump in the number of children needing food assistance, and a 64 percent increase in hunger in senior citizens' homes,” said Daniel Tencer, journalist at www.rawstory.com  “The study, Hunger in America 2010, found that 37 million people, or roughly one in eight US residents, received food aid in 2009. That's a 46 percent jump from a similar survey carried out in 2006.”

Coffman expressed the same thinking as the Pope when he condemned Galileo for observing that the earth revolved around the sun instead of vice versa.  Coffman showed (s) a complete lack of understanding that we’re already drowning in too many immigrants with 20 million illegals while adding 1.2 million legal immigrants annually—yet 20 million American citizens cannot obtain a job and another 35 million live on food stamps.

Then, we face horrendous environmental problems with carbon footprint, ecological footprint, water shortages, energy crisis and more. That shows a HUGE disconnect from what our citizens face.

Next, I said that we need to stop giving away H-1B and H—2B visas because over 1.1 million IT workers in the USA suffer unemployment from the insourcing, offshoring and outsourcing of American jobs.

He wrote back, “While this may lessen the amount of people in our country, it will also place America at a competitive disadvantage moving forward. For that reason, I do not support eliminating the H-1B and H 2-B Visas.”

Is he nuts or what?  We suffer 1.1 million unemployed Americans IT workers BECAUSE of those H-1B and H-2B visas!

He gave a bunch of other inane excuses to move on several other points, as did Udall and Bennet.  I asked all of them to support International Family Planning which provides birth control for women of the world so they might bring down birthrates to two kids instead of having 10 kids that suffer starvation as do over 10 million children that die of starvation annually around the globe.  Obviously, that’s one of the reasons they flee to the USA for a “better life.” (Source: World Health Organization)

He wrote back, “I oppose funding organizations which use taxpayer dollars to perform or fund abortions.”  Understand this Mr. Coffman: over 46 million desperate women choose abortions annually, as a secondary form of birth control, because they weren’t given birth control through family planning organizations in the first place.  And, for those who didn’t use birth control, a whopping 18 million humans die annually from starvation in overloaded countries.   No thanks to the Catholic and Islamic churches!

If Coffman, Udall and Bennet along with the other 532 people walking around Washington DC would get off their fat elitist/narcissistic butts, and take action for the good of our citizens—we would see results instead of worsening drama across our country and the world. 

We really need to vote out most of the incumbent members of Congress and inject new blood, new thinking and workable solutions.  The current crop proves a rat’s nest of incompetence, corruption and neglect of our citizens.

##

Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border.  In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece.  He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges.  He works to bring about sensible world population balance at www.frostywooldridge.com  He is the author of:  America on the Brink: The Next Added 100 Million Americans. 

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Democrats’ Political Suicide Pact

By J. Matt Barber

The president recently told Diane Sawyer: “I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” Excise the self-aggrandizing “really good” twaddle and it would seem ol’ Windy City Barry’s well on his way.

In the wake of Democrats’ historic Massachusetts smack-down, I’ve been anxious to see whether Obama would dig in his jackbooted heels and forge ahead with his wildly unpopular socialist agenda; or if he’d play nice with others and tack center (à la Bill Clinton in ‘94).

Wednesday night, during his first State of the Union address, we got our answer.

I’ll leave the in-depth analysis to others, but here’s the recap: Obama was Charlie Gibson and America was Sarah Palin. He looked down his nose, through the teleprompter, at the American people and in the most “me-centric” way imaginable, said: “Electric trains are wicked-cool. America sucks. Capitalism sucks. The Supreme Court sucks. It’s Bush’s fault. Oh, yea – the jobs thing. I’ll start my spending-freeze diet tomorrow. Give Perez Hilton a machine gun. Bama knows best. I’ll never quit. It’s Bush’s fault. Hopey-changey. Peace-out.” 

I have mixed feelings. The not-ready-for-prime-time amalgamation of jaw-dropping hubris and chuckle-out-loud incompetence this man continues to display bodes well for conservatives. The creepy political suicide pact he, Pelosi and Reid have apparently entered into – if fulfilled – almost certainly ensures an electoral bloodbath in 2010. It could cripple the Democratic Party for decades to come.

On the down side, if Obama and his fellow “progressive” extremists in Congress actually implement any of these radical policy initiatives, it could cripple the entire country for decades to come. If Obama loses, Democrats lose. If Obama wins, we all lose. Either way, Dems are in a pickle. 

While recently trying to reassure his very anxious colleagues that all’s well in O’Ba-La-Land, the president advised Democrats that the difference between 1994 and 2010 is that, now, “you’ve got me.” On Wednesday night he reminded them that, despite America’s wholesale rejection of ObamaCare specifically, and his larger socialist agenda generally, Democrats “still have the largest majority in decades.” He defiantly admonished: “Don’t run for the Hills,” concluding, “I have never been more hopeful.”

Now, as we all know, optimism is “always seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.” Narcissism, on the other hand, is laboring under the pathological delusion that you are the light at the end of the tunnel. 

In 1994, after Bill Clinton over-optimistically interpreted his uninspiring presidential victory as a cart blanche mandate to “remake” America into Europe, voters responded by sweeping Republicans into leadership for the first time in 40 years.

Now – as revealed Wednesday night – we learn that, this time around, Obama has over-narcissistically interpreted his uninspiring presidential victory as a cart blanche mandate to “remake” America into Europe.

To borrow from Yogi Berra: It’s déjà vu all over again.

Notes, Elaine Donnelly with the Center for Military Readiness: “Dan Balz in a November 14, 1994, Washington Post article titled ‘Health Plan Was Albatross for Democrats: Big Government Label Hurt Party, Poll Finds. Greenburg found that 54% of 1,250 voters surveyed named the Health Care Task Force issue [HillaryCare] as the number one reason they cast a ‘vote of dissatisfaction’ in the leadership of Clinton and the Democrats controlling Congress in 1993. 

“Greenberg also identified a second issue, called ‘cultural liberalism,’ which was cited by 51% of respondents and symbolized by Bill Clinton’s failed 1993 campaign for homosexuals in the military.”

So, in 1994, voters took Clinton and Democrats to the woodshed for 1) trying to “Mark McGwire” the federal government through imposition of socialized healthcare, and 2) for pushing hard-left social policies to include misusing and abusing the military as a petri dish for San Francisco-style social experimentation.

Obama? Same script, different decade.

As Einstein (or was it Ben Franklin?) observed: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” So, is our president insane, daft, an obstinate left-wing ideologue or all three? You be the judge.  

One thing’s for certain. Wednesday night kicked-off the 2010 campaign season. Wonder how many Democrats will – as did Deeds, Corzine and Coakley – ring the Oval Office for help.

Kind of like having Jack Kevorkian lend a hand with your medication, I suppose. 

Matt Barber is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He is author of the book “The Right Hook – From the Ring to the Culture War” and serves as Director of Cultural Affairs with Liberty Counsel.

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What is TEApublicanism?

By Tim Dunkin

Conservatives in America find themselves at a cusp in our history. Just one short year ago, it seemed that all was lost. A new President was installed into office - one who we knew, even if 53% of the voters didn’t, would destroy the liberty and prosperity remaining in America. To top it off, the opposition Party had been decimated in two straight elections, largely because it wasn’t opposing the march of big government, and was in no condition to advance the cause of conservatism at all. Yet, we now find ourselves on a whole different playing field. The incontinence and haste of our narcissistic, juvenile President and his Congress have ignited a public backlash against virtually all aspects of their agenda. The American electorate is suddenly finding their inner conservative once again, and the Republican Party has been the beneficiary (somewhat undeservedly) of the electorate’s turn of mind. The Tea Party movement, and the Town Hall takeovers from last fall have helped to crystallize the public’s opposition to the Democrat agenda, and have also served to channel their disgust into productive directions for conservatism.

As I’ve pointed out previously, the Tea Party movement is nothing new, but is the renovation of authentic conservative (regardless of Party or lack thereof) activism. In it, we see conservatives and other liberty-lovers of all stripes standing up, getting organized, and telling the tone-deaf, elitist political establishment in Washington that they’re mad, and they’re not going to take it anymore. This reinvigorated conservative activism helped Doug Hoffman in NY-23 to come out of nowhere and nearly put him into office, in the process relegating the leftist establishment Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava to third party status (and frankly, I think that if the voters knew last November what they know now, Hoffman would have won it hands down). Tea Partiers helped to mold the coalition that put Scott Brown into office, sending Obama and Co. a strong repudiation. Conservative activists have helped the conservative Marco Rubio take the lead in the GOP primary in Florida over the Stimulus-loving friend of Obama, Charlie Crist. All across the country, conservatives are getting involved and shaking up the political landscape like a volcano.

Another point I’ve made in previous articles is that conservatives need to stick together – and that means conservatives both outside and inside the Republican Party. That is where TEApublicanism comes in, a term which I used in my previous article, but did not define. Allow me to do so here.

TEApublicanism is a term that, to my knowledge at least, was first coined on Free Republic by FReeper SeattleBruce. In a nutshell, TEApublicanism is a practical approach to conservative activism that rejects two things: Third Partyism and establishment Republican business as usual.

As readers of my previous articles may have noted, I have roundly rubbished the notion that conservatives should go third party. I think the idea is pure foolishness. There’s nothing that helps to sap the drive and momentum of a movement like splitting it up among a gadzillion different little groups. This is what third partyism does. It takes our efforts, and divides them, introducing acrimony and destroying our ability to work together for the common goal of advancing conservatism. Let me say that I understand the frustration of those who want conservatives to take the third party route, and who want us to break with the Republican Party once and for all. I will address this in a moment. However, the GOP has the resources, the organization, and the membership that conservatives need to harness to have a practical chance of impacting our electoral and political systems. Why spend years building an organization from the ground up, when one is already established nationwide? And why spend years trying to woo the 56% of American conservatives who are also registered Republicans away from their party, only to try to induce them to join your particular third party, which is just one of dozens of conservative third parties (literally) floating around out there? A much better route is for conservatives to get involved with the Republican Party at the grassroots level, and use it to advance our agenda.

Now, this does not mean, however, that I am asking conservatives who are independents, members of third parties, libertarian-leaning, etc. to subordinate themselves to a Republican Party that is dominated by the likes of John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and the rest of the RINOs who have made the GOP what she was in 2006 and 2008. I’m not asking them to join a group, only to see it remain the very thing that drove them to leave it in the first place.

Instead, TEApublicanism calls on conservatives to come together in the GOP, making the first order of business to be the destruction of the RINO establishment power structure, and its replacement with a party leadership and organization that is reflective of the values of the conservative majority. In short, TEApublicanism calls for conservatives to band together and to take on and defeat the McCain-Graham-Romney axis of evil.

There are two ways for this to be done.

First is for conservatives to get involved at the local level. Work within your county’s Party apparatus to capture it for conservatism, and then work your way up. Flood your county conventions if you have to, and bring along some folks who know how to use the parliamentary procedures that are used to run these conventions. When conservatives get hold of the county apparati, then they get to determine who the leadership is at the state level, and from there the national level. The establishment RINOs and the cigar-smoking, back-slapping smoke-filled back room types who dominate so much of the Republican Party’s power structure are only there because conservatives have failed to get involved and “upfilter” their numbers and influence into the higher reaches of the Party. Granted, we should expect that the RINOs and insiders will put up a fight – but we can beat them if we all get organized, on the same page, and use our conservative numbers to our advantage.

Second, conservatives need to do everything they can to dry up the ability of the RINOs and establishment types to exercise influence and power. I have long advocated that conservatives refrain from donating money to official Republican organs like the RNC, RSCC, the RCCC, and so forth. Give money directly to the candidate instead. The money donated to these organs by well-meaning but hoodwinked Republicans is often used against conservatives. Observe what happened in NY-23, where the RNC gave Dede Scozzafava nearly a million dollars, and this after it came to light just how bad and left-wing of a candidate she was. Observe also that individual conservatives at the grassroots level were able to deliver several money bombs to Hoffman’s campaign that made him competitive and nearly won the race for him. Likewise, in the race for the Massachusetts Senate seat, the RSCC did little to help Brown win – it only belatedly came out on election night, as reported by Ace at Ace of Spades HQ, that Party had quietly slid half a million to Brown’s campaign under the table. Of course, Brown was bringing in million dollar plus money bombs every day for the last two weeks of the campaign - from grassroots conservatives and Tea Partiers who enabled him to defeat Martha Coakley. Clearly, until the GOP establishment gets its act together (and that’ll coincide with the time when conservatives successfully take it over), the only feasibly option for committed conservative activists is to support candidates directly.

Another way to dry up the influence and power of RINOs is to remove them from elective office. We conservatives can work to do this by supporting conservative Republican primary opponents against known RINOs who are up for office, and by supporting conservative Republicans in the primaries to determine who will run against Democrat officeholders. I am blessed to have one such conservative Republican running in my district (North Carolina’s 4th district) to challenge the disgustingly left-wing David Price, who currently “represents” this district. In contested primaries between a RINO and a real conservative, we can work for the conservative’s campaign and band together to money bomb his or her coffers. We can support, for instance, Marco Rubio against Charlie “Chargin’ RINO” Crist in the Florida GOP senatorial primary. We can support J.D. Hayworth’s effort to take down John McCain, who has been one of the most consistently anti-conservative, pro-establishment, pro-amnesty, anti-free speech “Republicans” in the Senate. Find out who the conservatives are in your elections, and support them against the RINOs. Take away the offices that these RINOs hold, and you remove a lot of their influence and credibility. After all, if John McCain can’t even hold his own Senate seat against a conservative challenger like Hayworth backed by grassroots conservatives in Arizona and across the country, why would anyone think that his model for the Republican Party – which involves bringing it even further left and compromising with the Democrats even more – holds any water?

In short, TEApublicanism is an effort to unite lovers of liberty and smaller government, be they Republicans, independents, third partyists, libertarians, conservative Democrats, or anyone else who is with us, into a single movement that has the organizational advantages of the Republican Party, while also having the ideological advantages of the Tea Party movement. It’s a win-win situation, really. Conservative Republicans get their Party back, and conservative non-Republicans get a Republican Party that they can actually vote for without feeling dirty. Together, we can keep up the momentum that we are seeing to date, and rebuild the winning Reagan coalition.

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Obama’s Reckless Course Will Drive America Off The Cliff

by TVC Executive Director Andrea Lafferty

I once heard someone say that at the heart of liberalism is someone who believes that they know how to live your life better than you do. They know how to spend your hard-earned dollars, they know how to raise your family, etc. “Scratch a liberal and you find a fascist,” he said.

In the State of the Union, President Obama and his liberal supporters cheered wildly as he demonstrated that he will ignore the results of the recent Massachusetts election and continue on the same track to more government, fewer jobs and less security for the American people.

Some pundits praised the President’s tenacity while others praised his determination. I don’t believe it is either – I believe it is typical liberal arrogance. He knows better than us what to do, and he isn’t about to let any election results or giant tea party rallies get in the way.

And when a liberal money handout program like the bank bailout and the stimulus programs do nothing and stimulate no one, liberals always have a simple diagnosis – it’s because we didn’t throw away enough money. So, the President proposed another round of government giveaways – throwing more money into programs which do not work. The one thing President Obama will “stimulate” is debt and a dark future of high taxes for future generations of Americans.

Throughout the speech I kept hearing the sound of cash registers going “cha ching" -- racking up more costs for the taxpayer.

I was shocked (and I believe Justice Alito was shocked) when the President took advantage of the presence of the Supreme Court justices seated in the front of the House chamber to lecture them on their recent campaign financing decision which he doesn’t support.  Justice Alito mouthed the words “Not true!” for all eyes to see.  He was right and anyone who had read the decision would agree with the Justice.  But, the President was the only one in the room with a microphone.

In the coming year, I suspect there will be elections which will send similar messages to the President and the Congress.  Ignoring the angry concern of the average American man and woman, as President Obama did in his address, will not make it go away, it will just fan it and cause it to grow.

The State of the Union is not good, Mr. President, but the state of our nation’s leadership is worse.  Hard-working Americans are not fooled by name-calling and shifting the blame.  President Obama and the liberals in Congress have spent the first year trying to pass a socialist health care program which few citizens support.  Call us names, ignore us for as long as you can, but voters will have the last word.

Obama says he’s not giving up on his ambitious agenda of socializing our nation and taxing us into oblivion.

Here are a few ways you can be informed and work to slow down Obama's radical agenda:

• The President plans to keep up efforts to ram socialized medicine through no matter what.

• Obama continues to nominate individuals for high posts who are pro-abortion, and pro-gay in their political outlooks.  

• The LGBT activist movement is thrilled by President Obama’s commitment to their political goals.

• Democrats hold secret meetings on health care in violation of Obama’s promises of transparency in government.

• Obama promised change in his campaign but after Americans got a good taste of hope and change, they rejected it.

• Obama nominated Chai Feldblum to become a member of the EEOC. Feldblum believes that the gay agenda should trump religious liberty.

• Obama has promised to sign the Employment Non-Discrimation Act into law. It will violate religious liberty.

• Obama’s promise to close GITMO and bring terrorists into the U.S. undermines national security.

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OBAMA'S ANSWER FOR AMERICA? MORE OBAMA...

Jonah Goldberg

There's a story of an ex hausted tenor at La Scala who, facing repeated cries of "Encore," responded that he couldn't go on. A man rose in the audience to say, "You'll keep singing until you get it right."

That seems to be the defining principle of the Obama administration -- whose response to every problem, every setback, every hiccup and challenge has been, simply, "more Obama."

Indeed, for people who aren't sticklers for political jargon, it will be a shock that last night was Obama's first State of the Union Address, since it was his third formal address to a joint session of Congress. Yet for all of the political déjà vu, what was most surprising last night was the degree to which Obama delivered even more of the same.

Washington graybeards and pundits have been insisting that Obama needs to "start over," "reboot" and "tack to the middle" after Scott Brown's win in Massachusetts. But Obama's response last night was to recommit himself to the agenda that has gotten him in so much trouble.

In fairness, the president took a French-bath of Clintonism before he took to his beloved TelePrompTer. He doused himself with the scent of the deficit-fighter and trade-promoter. He unveiled a slew of small, easy, applause-gathering proposals and populist appeals that he knows will go nowhere.

He also indulged in a lot of feel-your-pain pathos, trying to connect with the real Americans suffering from the recession and the misdeeds of a "Washington" that Obama seems to think is run by someone other than him.

But the eau-de-Clinton couldn't mask the stench -- and Obama, in his supreme arrogance, didn't really seem to care.

There was no "pivot to the center," no serious accounting for the Massachusetts miracle or his misfortunes. Instead, there was an innumerate, inaccurate and distinctly unpresidential whine -- blaming George W. Bush for nearly all of his problems (leaving out, among other things, that the Democrats have been controlling Congress and crafting budgets since 2006).

The White House insists that the new wave of populism created by Democratic governance is, in fact, the same populist wave that carried Obama to victory in 2008. In other words, Obama was elected president by the backlash against his own presidency.

This novel theory allows Obama to stick to his view that there's nothing wrong with his health-care plan, and anyone who feels differently hasn't heard or understood the president's explanations.

So, he not only implored Democrats not to "run for the hills" on the health-reform bill, but insisted that as "temperatures cool," hot-tempered opponents will, of course, realize they were wrong about the bill.

Obama began his presidency insisting that government is the answer to our problems. A year later, he still believes that the era of big government is upon us.

In the same speech in which he preened over a gallingly gimmicky "spending freeze," the president promised more jobs bills, more "investments" in schools, roads, trains and factories. He even reaffirmed his support for his carbon-tax legislation -- which would send far more jobs overseas than it would create here at home.

But Obama has a bigger problem: Aside from a few throwaway lines of self-deprecation, whenever he grew passionate, it was to blame others.

His predecessor topped his list, of course. But also everyone else who disagrees with him.

Obama insists that Americans need to muster the courage to agree with him, to sign on to his agenda. Just as at Omaha Beach and Bull Run, Americans need to show their mettle. "Again, we are tested. And again, we must answer history's call." That "call" is the call of Obama.

"I never suggested that change would be easy, or that I can do it alone." So come on, you slackers, fall into line.

He decried the politicians who are in "permanent campaign" mode -- the same week he brought into the White House his campaign manager.

Other politicians are vain, cowardly and insubstantial. They need the courage to change. Meanwhile, Obama is great the way he is.

That is the attitude that has gotten the president in so much trouble. And last night's State of the Union speech showed us that change really isn't easy, particularly for the president.

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PRIORITIES: Obama Calls For Repeal Of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'

President Obama said Wednesday night he will work with Congress and the military to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that bars gays and lesbians from openly serving in the armed forces.

Obama made the remark in his first State of the Union speech during a short litany of civil rights issues, which included his successful hate crimes bill, a move to "crack down on equal-pay laws" and improvement of the immigration system.

"We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we are all created equal, that no matter who you are or what you look like, if you abide by the law you should be protected by it," he said.

"We must continually renew this promise. My administration has a Civil Rights Division that is once again prosecuting civil rights violations and employment discrimination. We finally strengthened our laws to protect against crimes driven by hate," he said.

"This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are."

Former Navy pilot Sen. John McCain said "it would be a mistake" to repeal the 1993 law that bars gay men and lesbians from revealing their sexual orientation, and prevents the military from asking about it.

"This successful policy has been in effect for over 15 years, and it is well understood and predominantly supported by our military at all levels," McCain said. "We have the best-trained, best-equipped, and most professional force in the history of our country, and the men and women in uniform are performing heroically in two wars. At a time when our Armed Forces are fighting and sacrificing on the battlefield, now is not the time to abandon the policy."

But in a message to Pentagon leadership, Gen. John Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it's time to repeal the law.

"As a nation built on the principal of equality, we should recognize and welcome change that will build a stronger more cohesive military," said Shalikashvili. His letter was sent to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, who supports repealing the policy.

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, an organization that works with those affected by the "don't ask, don't tell" law, praised Obama's call for repeal.

"We very much need a sense of urgency to get this done in 2010," the group said. "We call on the president to repeal the archaic 1993 law in his defense budget currently being drafted, that is probably the only and best moving bill where DADT can be killed this year. ... The American public, including conservatives, is overwhelmingly with the commander in chief on this one."

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, flatly disagreed with the idea of ending it.

"When it comes to 'don't ask don't tell,' frankly, I think it's worked very well. And we just ought to leave it alone," he said to reporters Wednesday morning.

The policy prohibits openly gay men and women from serving in the U.S. armed forces.

The policy bans military recruiters or authorities from asking about an individual's sexual orientation but also prohibits a service member from revealing that he or she is gay.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Michigan, supports ending the practice but wants to go about it carefully.

Levin said he did not have any details about what the president would say.

"If we do this in a way which isn't sensitive ... we could have exactly the opposite effect of what I hope will be the case -- which is to change the policy," he said Monday.

Levin said the committee plans to hold hearings on the issue in early February, although the hearing may be with outside experts -- delaying a hearing with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen, that had originally been promised, CNN was told by a congressional source.

Obama campaigned on the promise that he would repeal the law in his first year of office.

Speaking to the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign, in October, Obama admitted that "our progress may be taking longer than we like," but he insisted his administration was still on track to overturn the policy.

"Do not doubt the direction we are heading and the destination we will reach," he said.

Pentagon Spokesman Geoff Morrell deflected repeated questions about the policy at Wednesday's Pentagon briefing, directing reporters to take their questions to the White House.

"We continue to work on this problem," said Morrell. "But I'm not going to get into it with more specificity than that."

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INTIMIDATION: Obama directly condemns Supreme Court; Dems cheer (video)

President Obama directly condemned the U.S. Supreme Court, during his State of the Union address to Congress, over a decision allowing corporations to contribute to political advertisements.

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Brown’s Win Is a Victory for TEApublicanism

By Tim Dunkin

Last Tuesday was an exciting day if you are an opponent of the socialistic agenda that Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and their various and sundry acolytes in Congress have spent the better part of the past year trying to ram down our throats. In Massachusetts of all places — that bright, glowing sapphire blue jewel in New England's crown — a reasonably conservative Republican won the Senate seat held by the Kennedy's since 1952. In doing so, Scott Brown becomes the 41st Republican vote in the Senate, and the barrier to the passage of Obamacare in any of its present House and Senate forms. Brown, an energetic and charismatic candidate, campaigned on a platform of fiscal responsibility and opposition to the insanity we see unfolding in Washington. His victory over Marcia, er, Martha Coakley, in what should have been the single safest seat in the entire universe for the Democrats, has helped to underscore the disgust and anger on the part of the electorate for the present ruling power in the Capitol. People are angry, people don't want Obamacare, cap'n'trade', more spending, greater debt, higher taxes, and the rest of the "progressive" agenda that has hithertofore been pushed so aggressively by the Democrats.

The days and weeks to come will prove whether the Democrats learned anything from the drubbing they took in Massachusetts. So far, the signals seem to be mixed. Their handlers in the media seem to be in panic mode — even Chris Matthews, one of the wackiest of the whackos on television, has urged the Dems to pull back and reassess what they're doing. But then again, Matthews also got into a shouting match with Howard Dean about it, since Dean cluelessly thinks that the real problem is that the American people are mad that the Dems haven't gone far or fast enough. Several "moderate" Senatorial Democrats, like Evan Bayh (Indiana) and Jim Webb (Virginia) publically called on their leadership to back off of universal health care, and Pelosi was forced to admit that they don't have the votes in the House now to pass the thing — a sure sign that "Blue Dog" Democrats are abandoning ship, knowing that Obama isn't going to save them come November. Yet...there's also some noise that Pelosi is nevertheless going to make an attempt at passing Obamacare by reconciliation, which would serve as an end run around the loss of their filibuster-proof majority. Also, the Democrats just floated the idea of increasing the debt limit for the federal government another $1.9 trillion, so they can continue to borrow and spend more and more. So maybe the Democrats didn't learn their lesson after all.

While not as much of a red-meat conservative as I and many others would like, the general perception of Scott Brown is that he's "conservative enough," certainly as good as we can expect to see out of Massachusetts. As a state Senator in Massachusetts, he voted for Romneycare — the Massachusetts state version of socialized medicine — and he did so knowing it had a provision requiring the program to co-pay for abortions. His own stance on abortion, as articulated on his campaign's website, would appear to be a "soft pro-choice" position — he makes noise about abortion ultimately being "between a woman and her doctor" — yet he goes on to support a litany of positions which are indeed pro-life, such as parental notification and consent laws, opposition to partial-birth abortion, and support for making adoption easier. Brown stands generally for fiscal responsibility, and is on the record for supporting the right to keep and bear arms, opposing illegal immigration, and has stated that marriage is between a man and a woman. He also appears to desire to devolve a lot of these, and other, issues back to the states, so he sees to be solid on the issue of federalism as well. So I reiterate my terminology — Brown is "conservative enough," about as good as we'll get from a very leftist Northeastern state. Much better than Marcia, er, Martha Coakley would have been. As a Senator, Brown will give the conservative movement many more votes than Coakley would have, though he will probably have us rolling our eyes and groaning at times, too.

As imperfect of a candidate as he was, ideologically at least (as a campaigner, he was preternaturally exquisite), Brown nevertheless garnered the support of one group that has also been taking American politics by storm — the Tea Party movement. The Tea Partiers in Massachusetts endorsed and came out for Brown, which helped to put him over the finish line by delivering to him a strong majority among Independents.

This helps to illustrate the point I made earlier this month, which is that the Tea Party movement needs to "hijack" the Republican Party. The two cannot stand apart from each other, but they are unstoppable together — the essence of TEApublicanism. The Tea Party movement lacks the organization to operate as a mass-movement third party across the nation, and most of its leadership doesn't seem inclined to try to do so anywise, if the example of the coolness of the Florida Tea Partiers towards the self-proclaimed "Tea Party Party" started in that state is any indication. Further, if the Tea Party movement fields its own candidates in races where there is already a credibly conservative Republican running, then all they will accomplish is to split the vote and hand the seat to the Democrats — completely unnecessarily. DO run Tea Party conservatives when the GOP foolishly tries to install a Dede Scozzafava into office. DON'T run Tea Party candidates, however, when the GOP does the right thing and runs a Doug Hoffman on its ticket instead.

The Republican Party, in turn, desperately needs the Tea Party movement, and would be indescribably foolish to ignore or reject it. The Tea Party movement, as I said earlier this month, is a re-energized mass movement of conservatives who are getting active again after having gone dormant for a while. The Tea Party movement is, in essence, the rebuilding of the Reagan coalition of conservatives — Republicans, Independents, "Reagan" Democrats, libertarians — people who want fiscal discipline from their government and less intrusion into their own lives. If the Republican Party follows the John McCain route — trying to pawn off more big-government establishment insiders onto us — then it deserves to lose, and lose big.

However, that need not be the case. The election of Scott Brown shows us the way out of the wilderness. The Tea Partiers helped to elect the Republican. They united the thin-on-the-ground Republicans in Massachusetts with the much-thicker-on-the-ground Independents, and elected a Republican candidate who represents their views and interests much more than Marcia, er, Martha Coakley would have. The Republicans pick up a seat, while the Tea Partiers helped to kill, or at least severely wound, Obamacare. A win-win situation for all involved.

So what would have happened had the Tea Partiers irrationally played the "hate Republicans" game and endorsed the Independent candidate, Joseph Kennedy, perhaps delivering him a few percentage points of the vote, taken from Brown? Ol' what's-her-name would now be the Senator-elect from Massachusetts, the Democrats would have had no lessons to learn, and would even now be preparing to finalize the destruction of American health care and American freedom.

The example of the election of Scott Brown needs to be the wave of the future for conservative political activists. Granted, I hope we can find many candidates who are more conservative to run in the many more conservative districts all across this country. But this fusion of the conservative grassroots in the Republican Party with the concerned conservatives who make up a broad portion of the self-described Independents in this nation is what Reagan rode to victory in 1980 and what the Contract with America Republicans rode into office with in 1994. The people of this nation don't want socialism, nor do they want socialism-lite. They want statesmen (rather than politicians) who will stand up and protect their freedoms, their pocketbooks, and their country. Give them that by uniting the conservative movement and seeing the conservative agenda advanced, and follow up on it by not going soft and forgetting why we were elected in the first place, and we will see a renaissance for conservatism and America.

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Time to Eliminate Czars and Handmaidens, Mr. President!

By John W. Lillpop

Scores of millions of Americans are fitfully waiting the unveiling of the new and improved President Obama, set to roll out at 9 tonight.

A word of caution, Mr. President: People are looking for real CHANGE this time, mostly to the wrong-headed policies and decisions that you have implemented over the past 12 months.

We hear that you will propose a spending "freeze" in order to address the huge deficit that you, Speaker Pelosi and Senate Leader have rung up.

With all due respect, sir, isn’t a freeze just too little, too late?

From a taxpayers’ perspective, it certainly seems that the Obama deficit has grown so unwieldy that only a legitimate slash and burn effort stands a chance at making a difference. Running in place should not be an option.

Only real CHANGE will do, sir.

When it comes to identifying unneeded bloat in government, you could make a decent start simply by looking around the White House itself.

For instance, why in Hades does a man with an IQ of 170 need 40 "czars" to keep track of doings in government? Better to slash the unneeded programs AND the czars. Do it now for the people!

And can you please explain to the American people, many of whom have lost their homes or are in the process of suffering that indignity, why the FLOTUS needs 30 or so hand maidens to tend to her personal needs?

Surely, there must be a less costly way to provide a family of four with luxury and comfort in the White House?

When it comes to wasteful spending, why not propose a freeze on all non-essential congressional travel? Like Speaker Pelosi’s million dollar extravaganza in which she loaded a few Air Force jets with leftist cheerleaders to watch you fail at the global warming farce in Copenhagen?

Why not force Pelosi to justify why she had to go to Copenhagen and why it was necessary for her to take most of San Francisco with her on a winter’s holiday-- at taxpayer expense?

Speaking of wasteful boondoggles, perhaps you and Michelle should pool your money with that of Oprah in order to pay the US Treasury back for the money spent to transport the three of you to Copenhagen in your failed attempt to have the 2016 Olympics staged in Chicago?

Even greater savings could be realized by using common sense in the handling of KSM and other brutal terrorists. Is it really necessary to spend $200 million a year just to try these renegades in New York City when a military tribunal is much more than they deserve?

Why not abandon your leftist agenda, sir, and "spread the wealth" back to the American people from whence it came?

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All politics and unemployment are local

By John David Powell

The late Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Thomas "Tip" O’Neill, Jr., made grammarians grimace and pundits ponder when he shared the wisdom of his father who noted that "all politics is local." The elder O’Neill’s comment followed his son’s only election defeat, the result of the campaign’s failure to heed what was happening in the candidate’s own backyard.

As of this month, I am an involuntary member of the army of the unemployed, sharing the anxieties of millions of my fellow citizens without paychecks because the economy no longer supports the functions we performed for our former employers. We are an army in need of a leader, one who understands our plight and who heeds what is happening in his own backyard.

This isn’t the first time I’ve looked for work during difficult economic times. Back in the last century, during the late 80s, I received my MBA in finance just as the stock market took a tumble to start the one-term presidency of Bush 41. I returned to college in hopes of trading in a career in broadcast journalism for a life in the corporate world. Instead, I ended up in print journalism, reporting on crimes and corruption in the public sector.

An opportunity arose at the end of the century that allowed me to combine decades of experience in journalism, public relations, and marketing to support the various aspects of a public university system. It was a great job, one that included writing speeches, legislative testimonies, op-ed pieces, and magazine articles to summarize issues and policies for the university family, business and community leaders, elected officials, and other stakeholders.

I then coordinated communications for the university’s largest college, and developed the university’s first monthly, interactive electronic newsletter. This last assignment gave me a communication presence (in radio, television, print, cable, satellite, or online) in every decade since the 1950s. OK, full disclosure dictates I mention that I started out doing radio commercials as a pre-schooler. True story.

Anyway, at the end of the two-term Bush 43 administration the economy collapsed, university endowments shrank, and non-academic functions paid the price.

There is some solace knowing the university eliminated my position through the dreaded Reduction In Force and did not fire me because of poor job performance, crimes, or violations of university policies. In fact, the people who chose the easy way to save money and keep their jobs allowed me to leave mine with a certain level of dignity one would expect to accompany a decade of service at the highest levels of the organization, i.e., I got two days to clean out my office instead of being escorted immediately to my car, and I stayed on the payroll with full benefits through the holidays and into the first of the year.

Job hunting is a learning experience. You learn discrimination is alive and well and thriving. Do not be fooled by the terms "affirmative action" and "equal employment opportunity." Today’s employers have their pick of the lot. I had one person tell me her business received scores of applications for a receptionist’s job. One way to cull the list was to pick the first name of a current employee then eliminate all applicants with that name.

I’ve also learned that trite excuses haven’t changed over the decades. People still think they’re softening the blow by saying you’re over-qualified, not realizing what they’re really saying is they hired a less-qualified person.

So, how does my unemployment relate to "all politics is local?" Conservative estimates put the nation’s unemployment rate at ten percent. The rate in my household, however, is 100 percent, because my wife is on disability.

This means that when President Obama delivers his State of the Union speech to a joint session of Congress, I’ll be waiting to hear what his administration plans to do about the economy and jobs. I’m not interested in healthcare reform, because I’m happy with my coverage. I’m mildly interested in housing and mortgages, because I don’t like to see people who could afford their homes when they had jobs lose their homes because they don’t have jobs.

And I don’t want to hear how the government will punish evil bankers for making money for their stockholders. In other words, doing the jobs they’re paid to do.

In my opinion, Washington should concentrate on the economy and jobs because all politics is local and the President needs to heed what’s happening in my own backyard.

John David Powell is an award-winning Internet columnist and writer.

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Massachusetts Provides "Teaching Moment" for Obama, Liberals

By John W. Lillpop

 

Judging from the fallout over Scott Brown’s unprecedented victory, President Obama and fellow lunatics in Congress seem disinclined to accept the election results as a legitimate measure of voter disgust with liberalism and Obama.

 

Obama even hinted that the election was carryover rage that voters still harbored against his predecessor. That, of course, would be George W. Bush, the most vindicated president in our history.

 

Can you imagine? Why would Massachusetts voters choose a conservative Republican to replace the icon of liberal malfeasance, the late Ted Kennedy, because of lingering displeasure over Bush, another conservative?

 

Would that not be cutting one’s nose to spite one’s face, as it were?

 

The simple truth is that the Obama mystique has been exposed a monstrous fraud perpetrated on an unsuspecting electorate.

 

Who would have voted for Obama knowing that his policies would cause unemployment to soar?

 

Who would have checked the box next to Obama’s name knowing that two terrorist attack attempts, one of which was successful, would strike America within the first year of his presidency?

 

Who would have voted for CHANGE knowing that it would cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars for nothing but liberal puff?

 

Still, there is a bright side to all of this, Mr. President. Why not man up and accept your decline as a “teaching moment” from which great wisdom can be gleaned and America can recover?

 

Why not accept your first year in office as proof positive that socialism simply does not work in America?

 

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Napolitano: U.S. Knew "Underwear Bomber" Was an Extremist

by Jim Kouri

 

U.S. Senators during their Homeland Security Committee hearings heard testimony by the country's upper-echelon law enforcement and anti-terrorism officials -- including FBI director Robert Mueller, National Counterterrorism Center director Michael Leiter, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano -- that none of them were consulted by the White House or the Department of Justice about the decision to process the Christmas Day "Underwear Bomber" in the civilian criminal justice system.

 

On December 16, 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian national, purchased a round-trip ticket from Lagos, Nigeria to Detroit. Abdulmutallab went through physical security screening conducted by foreign airport personnel at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos on December 24 prior to boarding a flight to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. This physical screening included an x-ray of his carry-on luggage and his passing through a walk-through metal detector. Abdulmutallab went through additional physical screening, conducted by Dutch authorities, when transiting through Amsterdam to Northwest Flight 253 to Detroit, and presented a valid U.S. visa. Abdulmutallab was not on the No Fly or Selectee Lists.

 

Accordingly, the airline and airport personnel were never alerted to prevent him from boarding the flight or additional physical screening, nor did the IAP officer advise Dutch authorities of any concerns. As with all passengers traveling on that flight, and similar to all other international flights arriving in the United States, CBP evaluated Abdulmutallab’s information while the flight was en route to conduct a preliminary assessment of his admissibility and to determine whether there were requirements for additional inspection. During this assessment, CBP noted that there was a record that had been received from the Department of State, which indicated possible extremist ties.

 

It did not indicate that he had been found to be a threat, or that his visa had been revoked. CBP officers in Detroit were prepared to meet Abdulmutallab upon his arrival for further interview and inspection. The attack on board the flight failed in no small part due to the brave actions of the crew and passengers aboard the plane.

 

"The attempted attack on December 25 was a powerful illustration that terrorists will go to great lengths to defeat the security measures that have been put in place since September 11, 2001. This Administration is determined to thwart those plans and disrupt, dismantle and defeat terrorist networks by employing multiple layers of defense that work in concert with one another to secure our country. This is an effort that involves not just DHS, but many other federal agencies and the international community as well," said Secretary Napolitano during her testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.

 

"Customs and Border Protection noted that there was a record that had been received from the Department of State, which indicated [Abdulmutallab had] possible extremist ties. It did not indicate that he had been found to be a threat, or that his visa had been revoked. CBP officers in Detroit were prepared to meet Abdulmutallab upon his arrival for further interview and inspection. The attack on board the flight failed in no small part due to the brave actions of the crew and passengers aboard the plane," she said.

 

"Whenever Americans see her face, they are reminded of the incompetence that thrives within the Obama Administration. Napolitano -- along with Holder at Justice and Panetta at the CIA -- will remain a reminder of an administration that just doesn't get it," said former police commander and Marine intelligence officer Mike Snopes.

 

In the aftermath of the Christmas Day security debacle, Napolitano outlined five recommendations DHS will pursue to upgrade aviation security. President Obama had ordered security reviews following the attempted terrorist attack, including recommendations from the intelligence and security communities.

 

“The attempted attack on Christmas Day is a powerful illustration that terrorists will go to great lengths to try to defeat the security measures that have been put in place since Sept. 11, 2001,”said Secretary Napolitano.

 

“These recommendations will strengthen aviation security—at home and abroad—through new partnerships, technology and law enforcement efforts,” she said.

 

Secretary Napolitano’s recommendations come in addition to the Department’s immediate actions following the attempted attack — including enhanced security measures at domestic airports and new international security directives that mandate enhanced screening of every individual flying into the United States from or through nations that are State Sponsors of Terrorism or other countries of interest and the majority of all passengers traveling on U.S.-bound flights.

 

Reaction to the President's speech and Napolitano's statement met with mixed reaction. While Obama supporters were quick to herald his briefing and actions, many Americans were less enthusiastic.

 

“It is unacceptable to just claim human error and systematic problems, but not assign responsibility except to say ‘the buck stops here.’ The blame does rest with the President for creating an atmosphere in his Administration where no one wants to offend anyone – not even a terrorist,” said Danny Gonzalez, director of communications for KeepAmericaSafe.org, a grassroots organization

 

"Obama said that as a country we would not have a siege mentality and we wouldn’t hide behind the walls of suspicion and mistrust. This is ignoring the fact that America is under siege, and we have bad people at our borders trying to get. Most importantly, visiting the United States is a privilege not a right, and we shouldn’t be afraid to deny people that privilege if there is any chance they pose a threat,” said Gonzalez.

 

Napolitano is also faulted for her alleged lax attitude towards illegal aliens and her opposition to tough law enforcement.

 

For example, last year Secretary Napolitano's reportedly stripped Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio -- also known as "America's Sheriff" by many admirers who hail him as a hero -- of his federal authority to arrest suspected illegal immigrants based solely on their immigration status. The federal authorities under President Barack Obama wish to do away with local cops enforcing our nation's immigration laws.

 

Arpaio's deputies attended the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Center in order to be trained for immigration enforcement as part of their regular law enforcement and jail management duties. In addition to the DHS attempting to curtail Sheriff Arpaio's immigration enforcement activities -- he states he will not stop arresting illegal aliens -- Obama's Attorney General, Eric Holder, is threatening to investigate Sheriff Arpaio and his department.

 

Sadly, at the same time the Department of Homeland Security estimates that the total unauthorized immigrant population residing in the United States is 10 million. Their total includes those who entered the United States illegally and those who entered legally but overstayed their authorized period of stay. Critics dispute the federal statistics saying that the number of illegal aliens is closer to 30 million.

 

Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he's a columnist for The Examiner (examiner.com) and New Media Alliance (thenma.org). In addition, he's a blogger for the Cheyenne, Wyoming Fox News Radio affiliate KGAB (kgab.com). Kouri also serves as political advisor for Emmy and Golden Globe winning actor Michael Moriarty.

 

He's former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed "Crack City" by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. He's also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country. Kouri writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer and others. He's a news writer and columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com, and he's syndicated by AXcessNews.Com. Kouri appears regularly as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Fox News Channel, Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, etc.

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Why No Presidential Wrath Aimed at Trial Lawyers?

By John W. Lillpop

 

Everyone knows that President Obama has made health care reform his signature issue. He walks, talks, eats, and sleeps health care reform, all the while preaching that the entire American economy faces ruin unless soaring medical costs are contained.

 

He has even stated that the issue is of such personal significance that he would be willing to leave the presidency after one-term, if needed to enact meaningful reform.

 

Given Barack Obama’s alleged passion, just why is it that the president has steadfastly refused to take on greedy trial attorneys, those ambulance-chasing barristers who are largely responsible for out-of-control jumps in health care costs?

 

Even socialist wild man Howard Dean admitted that health care change without tort reform would be a meaningless charade. Although Dean is not often correct on important issues, he was dead on this time, much to the wrath of Obama and the Marxist dim wits in Congress.

 

Everyone knows that the president is also desperate to shake off the doldrums of a miserable streak of bad luck in recent elections, not to mention a growing revolution within his own party.

 

In order to reclaim his standing as darling of the mainstream media and messianic hero to the unwashed masses, Obama has decided to champion a populist mission that will resonate with angry voters.

 

That is why Obama is aggressively showing his teeth to the banking industry by advocating new taxes and regulations that will demonstrate that is willing to get in the faces of powerful Wall Street tycoons in order to advocate for the little guy. Obama the fearless will zap the banking industry in your name!

 

If he succeeds, watch for those greedy bankers to pass on the additional costs to you, the consumer, in the form of new and increased fees.

 

But back to greedy lawyers.

 

If President Obama really loses sleep over the fact that 46 million people are uninsured and that the American economy itself is headed to ruin because of run away medical costs, why does he refuse to take on greedy lawyers?

 

If you really care, Mr. President, why not take on tort reform here and now?

 

And while you are at it, why not declare that you will sign no health care reform bill that does not apply to all federal employees, just as it would to average Americans?

 

That means all senators, representatives, White House employees and staff, Supreme Court Associates, and the president, the vice-president and their families.

 

That is, if you really care! 

 

 

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It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over

By Alan Burkhart

 

Okay boys and girls, it's time to slow down and take a deep breath. And while you're at it, a healthy dose of reality would be good, too. The pundits and bloggers are going bonkers over Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts. I'll admit to being glad he won for the simple reason that we'll have one less Democrat in Washington once he's sworn in.

 

But contrary to the gushing headlines proclaiming the end of the Left's agenda and the political demise of the Democrat party, Scott Brown is just one guy. He isn't the second coming of Ronald Reagan and he cannot guarantee that the Left won't still find a way to shove their agenda down our throats between now and November. There is still plenty of fighting left to be done.

 

Massachusetts is not a conservative state. The majority of voters there are independents. In all likelihood those independents range from centrist to liberal with a smattering of conservatives. Only 12 percent of the voters there are registered Republicans. Scott Brown won because he claimed to respect the will of the people and because those who met him could actually relate to him. Unlike cold fish Martha Coakley, Scott Brown is a regular Joe. That, at least, is refreshing.

 

In a previous posting, I stated that the Right would likely slaughter the Left in the midterm elections. I still believe that's true. But November isn't here just yet and the Democrats still hold strong majorities in both houses of Congress. They and their puppet in the White House are still determined to push through the biggest political boondoggle in our history before they potentially lose their majorities after the next election. Over the next few days you can expect them to become even more extreme than what we've seen thus far. Their rhetoric will almost certainly change to a more populist tone, but the underlying agenda will be the same.

 

Now, more than ever, it's time for the Tea Partiers to hit the streets. It's time to flood the email, fax machines and phone lines of wavering centrist Democrats. It's time to make sure they understand that a vote for this patently unconstitutional healthcare legislation or continued tampering with banks and the economy is a nonstop ticket to the unemployment line.

 

We have a real opportunity to block the Left's agenda. Scott Brown's election, along with recent Republican gubernatorial victories are signs that America is waking up and realizing what a dreadful mistake was made in giving so much power to the Left. The Democrat party mistook voter anger at the Republicans' ineptitude for carte blanche to send America lurching off into socialism. In a way, the last year has been a good thing because Americans are at last seeing the Democrats' true colors. And a lot of Americans don't like what they see.

 

But if the Republicans do gain a majority, then the people will have to ride herd on them to make sure they don't lapse back into their bad habits of the last ten or so years when they became little more than Democrat Party Lite. The big tent mentality must go if we are to have a truly conservative Republican party.

 

Assuming that the Soros-funded political machine does not find a way to bastardize the election process in the midterms, we'll see a Republican (and hopefully conservative) majority in at least one house of Congress next year. But as the saying goes, it ain't over 'til it's over. Now, grab your signs and get yourselves back into the street. We still have work to do.

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HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MR. PRESIDENT & THANKS FOR THE "HOPE & CHANGE"

A LOOK BACK AT PRESIDENT OBAMA'S "ACCOMPLISHMENTS" OVER THE LAST YEAR

What a difference a year makes. After his election, President Obama said "change has come to America" and he definitely wasn't kidding. In honor of his one-year anniversary in office, the Tennessee Republican Party wants to take a look back over the last 365 days at some news reports that highlight just of a few of President Obama's most historic accomplishments:

• RECORD DEBT - "With the national debt projected to soar by nearly $1.4 trillion this year, congressional Democrats are planning a year-end push to dramatically increase the legal debt limit so they don't have to revisit the politically uncomfortable issue before facing voters in November." ("Democrats to seek higher limit on the federal debt," Washington Post, 12/9/09)

• RECORD UNEMPLOYMENT - "In another sign that workers are being left out of the budding economic recovery, the U.S. unemployment rate climbed to 10.2 percent in October, topping the 10 percent mark for the first time in 26 years." ("Unemployment rate hits 10.2%, a 26-year high," MarketWatch, 11/6/09)

• "STIMULUS" FAILURE - "The government's economic stimulus spending has already had its biggest impact and probably won't contribute to significant growth next year, a top White House adviser said Thursday... Unemployment will remain high, at or above 9.6 percent, through the end of 2010, Romer predicted." ("Romer: Impact of stimulus will level off next year," Associated Press, 10/22/09)

• CUTTING SWEETHEART DEALS TO RAM THROUGH A GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER OF HEALTH CARE - "While the Nebraska Democrat got a particularly juicy concession in exchange for a 'yes' vote on the 10-year, $871 billion package - permanent and full federal aid for his state's expanded Medicaid population - support from a slew of other senators likewise came with a price." ("The Price Is Right? Payoffs for Senators Typical in Health Care Bill," Fox News, 12/21/09)

• BROKEN TRANSPARENCY PROMISES - "'We'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies,' Obama said. That hasn't happened. Instead, Democrats in Congress and the White House have made multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals and pharmaceutical companies in private. C-SPAN asked to televise the negotiations between the House and Senate versions; the White House insists it hasn't seen the request." ("Promises, Promises: Many Obama Pledges Unkept," Associated Press, 1/14/10)

• IMPORTING TERRORISTS INTO THE UNITED STATES - "President Obama's decision to transfer as many as 100 terror suspects from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to a maximum security prison in rural Illinois potentially sets the stage for a new round of high-stakes legal battles over what additional rights, if any, Al Qaeda suspects are entitled to... from the moment the detainees set foot on US soil, their lawyers will have the ability to tap into the full array of constitutional and other legal protections enjoyed by every American citizen and resident." ("Guantanamo detainees on US soil: a legal minefield," Christian Science Monitor, 12/15/09)

• NATIONAL ENERGY TAX THAT WILL RAISE COSTS ON FAMILIES - "The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent. A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration's estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year." ("Obama Admin: Cap And Trade Could Cost Families $1,761 A Year," CBS News, 9/15/09)

Last night, voters in Massachusetts had the honor of being the first this year to show President Obama what they think about his "accomplishments." Tennesseans will have to wait until November, but the President can rest assured that voters in the Volunteer State will be taking these historic "achievements" into account when heading to the polls this fall.

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Obama's First Year: By the Numbers

"Nothing special," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs when asked what President Obama is doing today to mark the end of his 1st year in office and the start of his 2nd.

(at right, President Obama takes the oath of office, Jan. 20, 2009.)

To hear Gibbs tell it, no one at the White House is much interested in noting the one year milestone.

"It's an anniversary of types, but I don't see that a lot of people are ultimately focused on marking the first year," said Gibbs at yesterday's daily press briefing.

He said the White House already had its fill of calendar anniversaries: the first 100 days; 200 days, six months; a year after the election.

It's just a date on the calendar "that denotes you've been here a year," Gibbs said of the occasion.

But it is a milestone, the most important so far on Mr. Obama's watch and a natural moment for taking stock – or in the case of this report: number crunching.

So quickly – before year-in-review fatigue sets in, see if any of these numbers and annotations offer insight into how the president spent his first year.

SPEECHES, COMMENTS & REMARKS: 411
• Includes 52 addresses or statements specifically on his health care proposals.
• He used a TelePrompTer at least 178 times. (Technically, it was 177 ½ . On July 13, 2009, one of the teleprompter screens on the left side of his lectern fell to the ground and broke shortly after he began speaking. So he was left with half a TelePrompTer.)

NEWS CONFERENCES: 42
• Of which 5 were formal, solo White House Q&A sessions. Four were in prime time. His last one was July 22, 2009. (seen at right)
• Nearly all of the other press availabilities were joint appearances with foreign leaders at which as few as 1 question was taken by Mr. Obama.
• Predecessor George W. Bush did 21 news conferences his first year of which 4 were formal, solo White House sessions. Only 1 was in prime time.

INTERVIEWS: 158.
• This is a striking number of interviews and far more than any of his recent predecessors in their first year. Ninety of the sessions were TV interviews. Eleven were radio. The rest were newspaper and magazine. The number reflects the White House media strategy that Mr. Obama can best respond to questions in an interview setting.

TOWN HALL MEETINGS: 23
• Includes 1 in Strasbourg, France and another in Shanghai, China

DOMESTIC TRAVEL: 46 out-of-town trips to 58 cities and towns in 30 states
• Most frequently visited state by Mr. Obama: New York* (excluding Maryland & Virginia, which border DC and to which visits are more local than out-of-town).
• President George W. Bush made appearances in 39 states during his 1st year.
• President Clinton visited 22 states in 1993, his first year.

FOREIGN TRAVEL: 10 foreign trips to 21 nations (4 of them twice).
• Mr. Obama made more trips abroad in his first year than has any other U.S. President.
• Next most frequent foreign traveler during first year in office was President George H.W. Bush: 7 trips to 14 countries.

FLIGHTS ON AIR FORCE ONE: 160

 

FLIGHTS ON MARINE ONE: 193

POLITICAL FUNDRAISERS: 28
• The events raised at least $27.25 million. (3 of the events Mr. Obama attended declined to disclose how much was raised.
• George W. Bush did 6 fundraisers his 1st year raising over $48 million.

CAMPAIGN RALLIES: 7
• The rallies were for Gov. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds, D-Va, and U.S. Senate Candidate Martha Coakley, D-Mass. All of them lost.

MEETINGS WITH FOREIGN LEADERS: 74 (several multiple times)
• This counts meetings with chiefs of state or heads of government
• George W. Bush met with 115 his first year (many more than once)

NATIONAL DEBT: On day Mr. Obama took office: $10.626 trillion
• One year later: $12.319 trillion
• Increase on Mr. Obama's watch: $1.693 trillion

BILL SIGNINGS: 124 of which Mr. Obama did 13 bill-signing ceremonies.

VISITS TO CAMP DAVID: 11 visits totaling all or part of 27 days.
• George W. Bush made 26 visits his first year spanning all or part of 81 days

VETOES: 1
• Mr. Obama's only veto to date killed a bill to keep Defense Dept operating in case Appropriations measure wasn't passed, which eventually it was.
• George W. Bush – 0 vetoes in first year. In fact, he didn't cast his first veto until his 5th year in office.

PARDONS or COMMUTATIONS: 0*
* Not counting 2 turkeys he pardoned at Thanksgiving.
(A White House aide says first year presidents are inundated with pardon petitions and usually don't grant any until after "an extensive review process is conducted at the Justice Department.")
• George W. Bush granted no executive clemency his first year either, except for turkeys.

VACATIONS: All or part of 26 days over 4 trips
• George W. Bush spent 69 days at his Texas ranch over 9 trips to his ranch his 1st year.

 

GOLF: 29 rounds of golf
• Most frequent courses: Fort Belvoir 11 times; Andrews AFB: 8 times.
• George W. Bush played golf 7 times his first year.

OUT OF THE PUBLIC EYE: 21 days on which Mr. Obama did not have a public or press appearance.

WHAT PRESIDENT OBAMA LEARNED IN HIS 1ST YEAR? Spokesman Robert Gibbs said yesterday that "change is never easy; that change takes time; that change has to go through Congress."

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Forget Massachusetts. Obama's problem is nationwide. Does He Feel Your Pain?

John B. Judis (HAT TIP to The New Republic)

Bill Clinton didn’t know he was in big trouble until the very eve of the November 1994 election. Barack Obama knows now, barely a year into his presidency. While the party loyalists can blame Martha Coakley’s defeat on her ignorance of Red Sox baseball, it was clearly a message to the president and his party. Yes, a less inept candidate might have beaten Scott Brown, but if Obama and his program had been more popular in Massachusetts, even Coakley could have won--and by ten points or more.

There were no network exits polls, only a limited sample by Rasmussen, but some of the polls taken beforehand bear out Obama’s role in Coakley’s defeat. In the final January 17 poll by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-leaning North Carolina outfit that picked up Brown’s surge early in the month, 20 percent of the respondents who voted for Obama in 2008 said they’d vote for Brown. Among those voters, only 22 percent approved of Obama’s presidency, and only 13 percent backed his health care plan. (Click here to read Thomas B. Edsall: "Why Health Care is the Graveyard of Democratic Dreams.")

In fact, the percent of 2008 Obama voters who were backing Brown almost perfectly matched the percentage who were dissatisfied with Obama’s health care plan, which Brown himself singled out for criticism in his campaign. According to the Rasmussen exit sample, 52 percent of Brown voters rated health care as their top issue--a clear indication that they were viewing the election in national and not merely state terms.

The most important question raised by Coakley’s loss is not what she could have done better--the answer to that can fill pages of unhappy anecdotes about campaign mishaps--but why Obama’s popularity is so low that a Democrat could lose Massachusetts. A conservative Republican Senate candidate winning Massachusetts, which Obama carried by 62 percent to 36 percent in 2008, is comparable to a liberal Democrat carrying Utah.

If you believe some of the blogs, the Democrats lost Massachusetts, and Obama’s approval is plummeting nationwide, because he alienated his left-wing base. Perhaps that does account for an absence of turnout among young voters in the Virginia gubernatorial or Massachusetts Senate races, but the polls have not shown growing dissatisfaction among young, minority, or liberal voters--the three voting blocs that accounted for Obama’s strongest support in 2008. Where he has lost ground--and where the Democrats have lost ground--is primarily among white working and middle-class voters and senior citizens.

The Suffolk University poll in Massachusetts, which like the PPP poll, was pretty much on target in the final result, singled out two white working-class towns, Gardner and Fitchburg, as bellwethers. Obama won Gardner, where Democrats hold a three-to-one registrations edge, by 59 percent to 31 percent in 2008. Brown won it by 56 percent to 42 percent. Obama won Fitchburg, with a similar Democratic edge, by 60 percent to 38 percent in 2008. Brown won it by 59 percent to 40 percent. That suggests a fairly dramatic shift among white working class voters.

There is no similar city or county gauge for how seniors voted in the final result, but there were prior polls. The Suffolk poll taken January 14 has some clues. The age group that most strongly favored Brown was sixty-five to seventy-four-year-olds by 58 to 38 percent. The same group opposed national health insurance by 48 percent to 28 percent and thought the federal government couldn’t afford such a plan by 66 percent to 33 percent. This age group also included the highest percentage of voters--41 percent--who said they “strongly opposed” Obama’s plan. And they were the one group (albeit narrowly) who disapproved of the job Obama was doing as president--by 45 percent to 44 percent. (Click here to read Jonathan Cohn's open letter to nervous and frustrated House Democrats.)

If you look at national polls, Obama has suffered the greatest loss of approval among exactly the same groups. In the Pew polls, Obama suffered a drastic drop in support in the $30,000-$75,000 income group, from 63 percent to 17 percent approval in February 2009, to 53 percent to 35 percent disapproval in the January 14 poll. Among respondents over sixty-five years old, he went from 60 percent to 17 percent approval to 54 percent to 31 percent disapproval. In its January 2010 poll, Pew has a breakdown by race that is even more disturbing. Whites with some or no college--a rough designation for working-class whites--disapprove of Obama’s presidency by 54 percent to 36 percent. 

Why do these groups matter? Since the 1960s, when the Democratic Party split over race, and later over cultural issues as well, the white working class has been a key vote in elections. Their departure from the Democrats in the South helped account for the transformation of the Deep South from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican. And in the Northern states, and particularly in Midwestern states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, they have been the swing vote in state and presidential elections. It’s a fair measure to say that if a Democrat can get about 45 percent of the white working-class vote, he or she can carry Ohio--Obama got about 44 percent in 2008. But if he gets only 40 percent or less in these states, he will lose those states and lose national elections. The white working-class vote may not be as important in five or ten years, as the demography of America shifts, but it remains so now—an enduring legacy of the politics of the late '60s.

The senior citizen vote overlaps to some extent with the white working-class vote, but it has a special importance because these voters come out disproportionately in midterm elections. If the Democrats continue to lose the senior vote, as Coakley appears to have done in Massachusetts yesterday, they will get clobbered in November 2010. We’re not talking two or three senate seats, but as many as eight, and not 20 or 25 House seats, but maybe between 30 and 40. To avoid a calamity on that level, Democrats will have to answer a difficult question: Why have these two groups distanced themselves in the last year, and particularly in the last few months, from Obama and the party?

These two groups of voters have not viewed Obama’s presidency in a fundamentally different way from many other voters, but they, and particularly working-class whites, have been the prime source of a populist anger against the Obama administration. They have perceived Obama as robbing Peter to pay Paul--or more concretely, taking benefits from and imposing higher taxes on them in order to provide greater income and benefits to others. And we are talking here about perceptions. I don’t intend to get into an argument about what is actually in the various health plans, some of which do benefit senior citizens and the white working and middle class.

Working-class populism in America has always taken two forms: The first--let’s call it left-wing populism--has typically been directed at speculators who make money from people who work in factories and offices and who don’t seem to contribute to the actual wealth of society. The second form--let’s call it right-wing populism--has targeted immigrants, black sharecroppers, the unemployed, and other out groups who are seen as trying to deprive those who work of their rightful earnings. These two strains often appear together, as they did in the original American populist movement. And these sentiments are most concentrated among the embattled classes--those that see themselves threatened from above and below.

Obama has provoked both left-wing and right-wing populism. He provoked left-wing populism by using tax dollars to sustain the banks and auto companies and to reward their managers who had already shown themselves to be incompetent--and then by acquiescing when the bankers paid themselves additional bonuses. In a poll taken in early January by Allstate/National Journal, 1,200 respondents revealed whom they thought had “benefited most” from the government’s response to the financial crisis. Banks, investment companies, major corporations, and the wealthy were way out in front.

Obama’s health care plan has provoked a combination of right-wing and left-wing populism. The middle class and senior citizens see it as a program that taxes and takes benefits away from them in order to help those without insurance--the out groups--and to enrich the insurance companies themselves. They didn’t invent this perception out of thin air: It derived in part from the plan to tax “Cadillac” health care plans (which are sometimes held by unionized middle class workers), penalize workers who don’t buy insurance,  and cut future Medicare spending, while providing new subscribers and profits for the insurance companies. Undoubtedly, the prior perception of Obama’s financial policies reinforced these suspicions about his health care plan, which is now as unpopular as the bank bailout. In Obama’s speech in Massachusetts last Sunday for Coakley, he relegated his health care policies to two passing references to insurance companies.

Is this political failure Obama’s fault? I have made the argument that Obama’s declining approval can be attributed to the rising rate of unemployment and that the only way he could have prevented, or eased, the fall in his popularity would have been to get Congress to adopt a much larger stimulus program last winter. I still think there is truth to that argument--and also to the riposte that with the current congress of Republican nihilists and Democratic deficit hawks it would have been impossible to get a much larger stimulus. But I think that there is more to Obama’s problems that than original sin of the insufficiently large stimulus program.

I updated the graph that I did last fall to illustrate the close correlation between unemployment rate and presidential approval or disapproval. What I found in Obama’s case is that at the beginning of last fall, when Washington began debating his health care plan in earnest, his level of disapproval began to exceed the rise in the unemployment rate. (See chart below)

Of course, there is nothing particularly scientific about this finding, but it at least suggests that Obama’s political problems can’t be entirely laid at the foot of the Great Recession. Beyond that, one has to look at how the administration has conducted itself politically.

Obama’s political problem boils down to the difficulty he has speaking to and for middle America. This problem became evident during the middle of the primary battle with Hillary Clinton. And it could have seriously damaged his candidacy against John McCain. But the onset of the financial crisis that fall, and McCain’s feeble response to it, along with his choice of Sarah Palin as vice president, highlighted Obama’s strongest asset in the eyes of voters--his intelligence--and reduced the importance of his lack of a common touch.

As president, however, Obama’s lack of engagement with middle America has come to the surface and has contributed to his decline in popularity. This shortcoming has been evident in his style and choice of venues--he gave his endorsement of Coakley on Sunday at Northeastern University, in Boston, rather than at a union hall or public auditorium in Worcester or Springfield. It is also evident in his choice of advisors and spokespeople and in the way he has framed his programs.

He chose the former head of the New York Fed, Timothy Geithner, to be his chief economic spokesman during a financial crisis that was widely seen as the product of Wall Street. And in developing and presenting his policies on the banks, he didn’t put the kind of conditions on taxpayer assistance that would have assured middle America that they weren’t giving handouts to the wealthy. 

In the case of his health care plan, he did not really have a spokesman, but ceded the public face of the policy to the congressional leadership. Perhaps, he should have settled this year--when the recession heightened populist fears and resentments--for partial reforms that were more closely geared to the recession. Large reforms have usually occurred when the economy is on an upswing (1935, 1964-5) and voters feel a fundamental security. But leave that aside.

Where Obama invited a voter backlash was by letting the burden of reducing health care costs appear to fall on senior citizens and those middle-class workers who had acquired good health insurance through decades of union battles with management, and not on the insurance and drug companies. Obama ceded too much to the policy wonks who were devising intricate schemes to show they could cut the deficit. He took his eye of off the political imperative of keeping middle America in his corner.

Obama now clearly faces not just a recession and two wars, but a political crisis. He needs to adopt policies that will boost employment, but he may not have the political clout to do so. He needs to restore the public’s faith in his own leadership, but it’s not clear to me how he can accomplish that.

The last two Democratic presidents faced similar crises. After the Democrats got drubbed in the 1978 midterms, Jimmy Carter took exactly the wrong course. He replaced mediocre people with even more mediocre people. He allowed intramural squabbles to surface. He lost his focus and ended up blaming the American people for his political problems. Clinton, who had governed his first year as a Rhodes Scholar and Yale Law graduate, rediscovered after November 1994 that he had been a successful governor of Arkansas. He governed for the remainder of his six years as the president of middle America, even resisting a furious attempt by Republicans to impeach him.

I am not sure how Obama can surmount this crisis. Obama does not seem, like Ronald Reagan or Clinton, to be a man of many faces. Even back in Chicago in the 1990s, it was clear that the man who had given up community organizing to become a lawyer and politician was more comfortable in Hyde Park than in Southeast or Northwest Chicago. Obama can try to make himself into a friend of Joe Sixpack and the enemy of Wall Street--he’s certainly trying to do so with his proposal to tax the big banks to pay for their bailout--but it’s not going to come naturally. Still, Obama has surprised his critics before, and perhaps (one hopes!) he will do so again.

John B. Judis is a senior editor of The New Republic and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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