OUR ELECTORIAL COLLEGE IS IN PERIL

Our freedoms are under attack on a daily basis, and we are working hard not to sound like "The Boy Who Cried Wolf". It's important to pick your battles, and this one fits the bill.

While the "state controlled' media is not reporting this, New Zeal writes: a "progressive strategy is underway to eliminate the role of the states in electing a U.S. President. By transferring electoral votes to a national popular vote (NPV) this 'Compact' would usurp the role of the states as safeguarded by our Constitution. In doing so, it could also neutralize Obama’s critics — totally."

There is a movement, the National Popular Vote Compact (NPVC), and, as statists do, it's working its way through each state like a cancer. Heritage writes: a number of state legislatures have "already adopted an agreement in which participating states would allocate their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, rather than the winner of the popular vote in their state. The agreement would go into effect when states with a total of more than the 270 electoral votes (the number required to win a presidential election) have adopted the agreement."  Unconstitutional doesn't give this assault justice!

Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum has written extensively about the dangers of a Constitutional Convention (Con-Con). One of her excellent pieces "Beware of Attacks on the Constitution", she writes specifically how "The Electoral College Serves Us Well".

If not watched, bit by bit the statists will overturn our liberty, and by the time it's noticeable, tyranny will be the rule of the day. (Respects to Mark Levin's "Liberty and Tyranny")

It's going to take all of us to stop this. You can find your contacts from the local assemblyman, to governor, to senator and above HERE. As my devoted grandfather would say:



A PYRRHIC DEFEAT

For those of us who fought against the Boehner Bill, and who stood ridicule in the face, it has been a bitter-sweet "told-ya-so". We can't claim victory, because the battle will continue as long as there are greedy, power-hungry people looking to fundamentally transform the United States of America.

More importantly, we've been had.  It's difficult to wrap my head around it being intentional, but actions speak louder than words, and in this new Debt Deal passage, votes won out over future financial disaster. They just don't have the backbone to take the steps we need to take to get to where we want to be. Oh my.

In fact, the Republicans messed up so badly, it's not even a Pyrrhic victory, but a Pyrrhic defeat, as Thomas Sowell writes:

In short, the Republicans have now been maneuvered into being held responsible for the spending orgy that Democrats alone had the votes to create. Republicans have been had — and so has the country. The recent, short-lived budget deal turns out to be not even a Pyrrhic victory for the Republicans. It has the earmarks of a Pyrrhic defeat.

This summer, Americans have the opportunity once again to let their feelings be heard. Our federal employees are on a long summer break, holding town halls across the nation. Remind them of how we were scared in to believing the debt ceiling had to be raised in order to protect our credit rating, and how millions of us cried out "no more debt", "live within our means".

The Fear Factor has been used too many times in the past few years, when our gut instincts told us no, but the politicians "who know better" said yes: TARP, the Stimulus Bill, ObamaCare, the Financial Reform Bill, and now the Boehner Bill (Thank you, Mr. Boehner, who gave the store away).

Every one of these monsters have proven to be more disastrous for America, and, in order to save face, the left is Dumping on the Tea Party, creating strawmen, and attacking American people who want to live by the Constitution.  Hmmmmmmm, the lady doth protest too much, methinks. Let them call us terrorists (by the vice president of the United States), racists, hostage holders and all the other vile names that aren't worth mentioning here. Victor Davis Hanson writes, Spare Us the Sermons, Mr. President:

In an appeal to voters, Obama urged that they not act calmly, but get angry: “I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry!” The polarizing talk was the logical follow-up to his campaign hype of 2008, when he ridiculed the “clingers” of Pennsylvania, called on his supporters to confront his opponents and “get in their face,” and at one point even boasted, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” His jokes about Nancy Reagan and the Special Olympics were needlessly tasteless and crass.

Obama’s inflammatory language and tough metaphors are not all that unusual in the American political tradition. But what is odd is that a habitual participant in brass-knuckles political combat should call for the sort of civility that he himself did not and will not abide by.

Liberalism is a mental disorder, and rather than deal with the facts, the left name calls. We must be doing something right, because as the president has been "leading from behind", and the Democrats have not passed a budget in over 840 days, Republicans managed to pass the Ryan Budget and Cut, Cap & Balance. This would NOT have happened without the influence of the Tea Party movement.

So while leading with the hair-raising "Fundamental Transformation" comment, let's end with the Farewell Speech of President Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office, January 11, 1989 (h/t Mark Levin) -- from a man who had to deal with double digit unemployment, double digit inflation, and double digit interest. He turned our country around. President Reagan ended the Cold War and set the American economy on course for the longest period of growth in modern history.

God bless this great country, and the men and women who fight to keep it free.

Illustration: Obamacare's Debt by Alexander Hunter for The Washington Times

SPECIAL ELECTION IN LOS ANGELES 36th - TEA PARTY-BACKED CRAIG HUEY

Tomorrow, Tuesday July 12th, we have a chance to pick up a critical and near impossible congressional seat in the House of Representatives in of all places -- Los Angeles, CA. Mr. Craig Huey is running for Jane Harman’s seat against the reprehensible LA councilwoman Janice Hahn.

Craig Huey is a Tea Party-backed Republican businessman who has decided to take on the Democrat machine. Pajamas Media has put together all the information you need to know the real story, and it's pretty interesting:

As expected, Hahn is now leading Huey in the heavily Democratic district, but by not nearly as much as she should be. Hahn claims a 9-percentage-point lead; Huey claims he’s within striking distance at around 2 or 3 points behind; the only poll released so far had Hahn up by a mere 5 points — just within the margin of error.

Read the full article here.

As seems to be the GOP's recent profile, Tea Party-backed candidates are getting little help from them, which does not bode well for the GOP in light of the 2010 elections. Huey's campaign can use all the help we can give at www.craighuey.com.

Give either your time by working the phone, door to door, or money -- whichever you can afford, but this is an election we can win.


QUICK LINKS:
Erick Erickson, Red State - Craig Huey Or The Lady Who Employed Drug Dealers and Rapists?

American Thinker - A Guide to the CA-36 Special Election Tuesday

National Review - This Special House Election Can Be Called Gang-Related

Los Angeles, Examiner - Craig Huey's get out the vote effort in full swing - Janice Hahn is striking out

OKAY, YOU GAVE THE ORDER. NOW, CAN WE GET BACK TO WORK?

As Obama takes another [undeserved] bow, President Bush comfortably retreats in the satisfaction of getting the job done. It was George W. Bush who laid out the steps that needed to be done to get the number one most wanted man, as his country, and the world, unleashed vile and contempuous accusations at him.

While most people are throwing accolades at Obama for a "gutsy move", I am one of the few who believe the man had no choice. Everything this man does is for the betterment of Barack Obama, and knowing that if he did not give the okay to take Osama out, it would blow up right around election time.

Now, can we get back to work, please? You know, the subject that plunged your poll numbers? The issue that Obama would rather avoid until after Nov-2012, so that he doesn't have to show his hand until then. The one that he showed the first two years of his presidency.

Obama has no intention of cutting back on his spending. He was given a gift that November day back in 2008 -- complete control of the Senate, the House, and the presidency, and he ran with it. In two years he has turned a country from a majority of makers to a majority of takers.

51 percent of households do not pay income tax. In addition, the top 20 percent of tax payers pay 67 percent of taxes. Upper-income taxpayers have paid a growing share of the federal tax burden over the last 25 years, so this talking point of the libs about "tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires" is pure bunk.

This current administration was loudly shellacked in Nov-2010, but since the GOP's lackluster performance from the lameduck session to today, it is apparent the American people need to play a more stronger role than ever before. We elected people who would take a stand against out-of-control spending and robbing our grandchildren with uncontrolled debt, but they are showing signs of the all too familiar GOP weakness.

We have some true leaders on our side, such as Jim DeMint and Mike Lee, but they are sadly in the minority. The American people have lost patience with the feeble attempts to cut government spending. We want real fiscal responsibility, so let's keep the pressure on. We are that shining city on the hill.

A contact list of our representatives from Grassfire is here.

Senator Jim DeMint, the first man to set the bar in opposition to Obama, writes an excellent piece about our precarious economic situation, and our weak-kneed government employees.

The Greenville News

Don't Surrender to the Debt
by Jim DeMint - May 1, 2011

There are only two choices when it comes to our nation's debt crisis. Fight the debt, or surrender to it.

Some are already giving up.

Since President Barack Obama was inaugurated, $3.6 trillion has been added to the debt and if the country continues on the path he has laid, the debt will nearly double in the next 10 years to $26 trillion. Yet many Democrats are insisting that it’s more important to increase the debt limit than it is to seek spending reforms to prevent our nation from going into bankruptcy.

Borrowing more money without any plan to cut spending is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline. It won't improve the nation’s financial standing; it will only endanger it.

Debt increase advocates are misleading the public when they say fiscal catastrophe will result from a failure to increase the debt ceiling. They are using scare tactics to keep up their big-borrowing and spending sprees, just like they did to justify their Wall Street and mortgage bailouts. The Chicken Little claims that a debt ceiling lapse would mean the nation's creditors will not be paid are simply not true.

Next year, tax revenues are projected to cover 70 percent of federal expenditures. Only 7 percent of all projected federal government expenditures will be used to pay interest on the debt. While Washington would need to engage in significant cost-cutting measures, the non-partisan Congressional Research Service has confirmed that default would happen only if Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner chooses to let it. He has the authority to prioritize payments to ensure that default does not occur by using the available money to pay the nation's creditors and cover essential services like Social Security payments without interruption.

The true threat to our economic future comes from continual increases to the debt limit with no credible plans to ever pay it off.

Trouble is already on the horizon.

Standard & Poor's recently downgraded their outlook of the U.S.'s long–term credit rating from "stable" to "negative." The International Monetary Fund is considering replacements for the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen has also warned, "The most significant threat to our national security is our debt." The loss of confidence in America's economy isn't because we're not raising the debt limit fast enough: it's because we have no credible plan to ever stop raising it.

Everyone agrees that the debt is dangerous. Refusing to confront it makes it more so. Granting the government another blank check in the form of a no-strings attached, borrowing increase is akin to waiving a white flag of surrender to the debt.

American families cannot afford our ever-expanding government. Over the last few decades federal spending has grown much faster than American earning power. Middle-income Americans' earnings have increased by 29 percent since 1970 but government spending has risen by a whopping 242 percent. A nation that owes more than it can ever produce is destined for bankruptcy.

That is why this moment must be leveraged to force deep, long-term structural reforms to the way the government spends money. The nation must balance its budget, or it will go bust. Republicans should oppose the increase unless Congress first passes a balanced-budget amendment that requires a two-thirds majority to raise taxes. Every state except Vermont is required by law to balance its budget.

The reason the country is in such a predicament is because the government does many things it should not do, it cannot do effectively and can't afford to do. More of the same will make things worse than ever.

We must have a balanced budget amendment that requires Congress by law to make the hard decisions it has been avoiding for decades.

Cutting spending is part of the answer, but isn't all of it. In addition to finding ways to save money, members of Congress must work together to reform broken federal programs, restructure government and devolve more activity to the states. Instead of inventing new things the federal government should do, Washington must find ways to let go control and let states take over.

If politicians in Washington aren't forced to do this now, they never will. It’s foolish to believe that if we let the government borrow more, somehow, politicians will choose to draft a budget to put an end to reckless spending later.

History proves otherwise. Congress has raised the debt limit 10 times in the last 10 years, cast hundreds of votes to pass new spending programs and held no votes on a balanced-budget amendment. If politicians are not obligated to balance the budget, it is certain they will continue adding to the deficit by creating new entitlements, like Obamacare, instead of fixing broken programs, like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Endless spending and borrowing is not the answer. It is the enemy. If we choose to surrender to the debt, instead of fighting it, it will surely lead to our demise.

2nd ANNUAL TAX DAY TEA PARTY RALLY, SANTA CRUZ, CA

As the 2012 elections draw closer, and over 2 years of the intrusive Obama administration in our lives, the 2nd annual Tax Day Tea Parties were celebrated across the country.  The main stream media continues to mininize the Tea Party movement, but it has become more and more prevelant on the lips of politicians, including the fearless leader.

One of the most thrilling Tea Party rallys had to be the one at the Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, with guest speaker Sarah Palin. Another Tax Day Tea Party rally in Washington DC heralded 4 prospective Republican presidential candidates -- so, We've Come a Long Way, Baby!

Now is the time for all good tea partiers to come to the aid of their country.  Obama, never having really left campaign mode, has ramped up his attack and laid out his platform for the next gruesome 18 months.  And attack he will, which makes it all the more critical for a strong Republican candidate to step forward.  Personally, I don't see one right now, but am praying that the closer we get to the election, the urgency of the situation will bring forth an unexpected warrior, who will debate the issues, ignore the name calling, and take on Obama toe to toe.  Obama will crumble like dried bread.

Since his great immaculation, Obama has pushed the envelope on endless occasions, but his Wednesday campaign speech in response to Paul Ryan (ever in his head now) takes the cake.  He invited the author of probably the best and most honest budget in history, Paul Ryan, along with 2 of Ryan's colleagues, to hear his speech.  Obama then proceeded to insult Congressman Ryan, and lambast Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" budget, showing the yellow streak that runs down the middle of this Commander in Chief's back.

Yes, Obama has pushed the envelope a little too far this time, and even Rush Limbaugh had enough, making an 'over-the-plate' observation:

"The Republicans need to take Barack Hussein Obama, throw his positions right back at him, unravel his BS and advance America's core principles. That's what made us great.**

Obama's not this cool, calm, collected guy. He's just... Folks, he's not a good guy. He's a mean, vindictive little guy. He's very cold."

**This should be the Republican Party's platform!

One of the best brains out there, Victor Davis Hanson writes in Pajama's Media about the maladies of Barack Hussein Obama.

PATIENT OBAMA
by Victor Davis Hanson - April 18, 2011

Last week the president gave a speech on the deficit, rightly trying to convince Americans that it is now beyond unsustainable. Yet his theme was that the Republicans’ attempts to reduce it were cold-hearted, endangering the most vulnerable among us, such as those with Down’s Syndrome, while protecting the proverbial “rich” from commensurate sacrifice. Let us, then, look at Obama, and the context of his speech, as a doctor might a patient.

Symptoms of the Illness
a) Obama just introduced a $3.5 trillion dollar budget with a $1.6 annual deficit — both record numbers. (If worried about debt, why then run up more record debt, if not by design to ensure higher taxes and larger deficit-run government?)
b) Obama ignored so far all the recommendations of his own blue-chip debt committee. (Why appoint an honorific committee that is to be humiliated?)
c) Obama demonized his opponents in precisely the manner that he had earlier warned against, both in his calls for a new civility following the Giffords shooting, and in promising not to demagogue cuts to entitlements in cheap partisan fashion. (Does his entire audience suffer from amnesia?)
d) Obama wants now to raise taxes on the “rich,” though right after the elections he had agreed that these hikes were a bad idea in such uncertain times. (An unwise idea in December is a needed one in April?)
e) Obama warns against shutting down the government in protest of unsustainable debt, though that is precisely what he voted for as a senator in 2006, when the deficit was about 1/5 of what it is now. (A Senator Obama would have been a President Obama’s worst nightmare?)
f) Obama said that neither he nor Warren Buffett needed another tax cut, although Buffett is the second richest man in America, who pays less a percentage of his income than most of those who make above the dreaded $250,000 — and Barack Obama is the country’s most privileged American who pays for virtually none of his own expenses. (The average optometrist really earns like Buffett and has no expenses like Obama?)
g) Obama still talks about ObamaCare, but has given 1,000 exemptions from it, often to those interests who were most for it. (If he exempted the entire state of Maine, could he just do the same for the other 49 and call it a victory?)

Diagnosis of the Malady
a) An erratic, unengaged president is bored with the work part of the job, enjoying far more the golf, attention, influence, and perks (despite not getting a “cool” phone system with a drop-down screen in the Oval Office), and so he simply sleepwalks through his speeches, oblivious to the contradictions he presents. (Who cares if his Libyan misadventure contradicts almost everything he said from 2002-10, since he was already on to Rio and praising Brazil for drilling off-shore in a manner we never would. Life is short, but the job cool.) OR

b) The president is cynical and says whatever he wishes without worry of consequences, because based on the past abyss between laurels and achievement (Harvard Law Review, offer of Chicago Law School tenure, record in the Senate, Nobel Prize, etc.), he feels exempt from scrutiny and audit. Indeed, he expects that he can always “hope and change” or “millions of green jobs” his way out of any rare, nit-picking journalistic follow-up. (A journalist will always declare him a “god” even if speech A nullifies speech B a day later). OR

c) The president says, like most, what he must to be elected and now reelected; Guantanamo, renditions, Iraq, tribunals, Predators, preventative detention, public campaign financing, revolving door politics, earmarks, lobbyists, etc. — these are all just “constructs” without real absolute truth. They are bad or good, depending on the political calculus at any given time — a consideration that changes sometimes hourly. So Obama seems to have discovered that what he said to get elected, or even said two weeks ago, he need not say today again or tomorrow. Polls change, so do talking points. (He also knows that 50% of the citizenry receive some sort of government money; almost 50% pay no income tax; and in February more money was redistributed than collected by the Treasury. Therefore most Americans will stick by him whatever he says — as long as he keeps the money flowing.) OR

d) The president is Machiavellian and, amid his apparent confusion and misdirection, has actually quite adroitly moved the country far to the left since 2009. While his growing number of critics bemoan his inconsistency, disingenuousness, ill-preparedness, contradictions, and lack of persistence, Obama looks only to the fact that the nation in the last 30 months has come to look more like his vision than that of his opponents. (The Left may groan, but they grasp that Obama’s youth, mixed ancestry, charisma, and untraditional candidacy are rare gifts that can advance a once unpopular agenda in a way a McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, or Kerry never could.)

Prognosis
None of this symptomology is mutually exclusive, and, in fact, these indications are more likely complementary. Indeed, the president’s speech is a good harbinger of the campaign to come. Contradictions mean nothing. Quite blatant reversals are irrelevant. For Obama to win, our patient simply counts on three therapies in 2012.

1) All recessions at some point get a little better. The world is now in a so-so recovery. We have printed $5 trillion since Obama was inaugurated. For a short period, say until the end of 2012, such “stimulus” will have a stimulatory, inflationary effect. An upswing comes now; the perfect storm of stagflationary hyper-high-prices, chronic unemployment above 8%, and spiraling interest rates may not take full effect until after the election.

2) The deficit is indeed unsustainable, and premise #1 is, in fact, endangered by it. So the Republicans will have to deal with it, and thus must bear the charge that they cut Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid, while fighting for the Bush “tax cuts.” If the Republicans want to “balance the budgets on the backs of the poor,” then Obama has no choice but to go to the barricades and stop that Dickensian ruthlessness. So propose a $1.6 deficit, ignore the debt commission, and let the Republicans play Scrooge to his Bob Cratchit.

3) The electorate is not as it was when it finally sickened of Jimmy Carter in August 1980. Far more are on public assistance, unemployment, Social Security, food stamps, etc., or work for thousands of new state and federal bureaus. There are millions more illegal aliens that have become citizens since the late 1970s. And the voting rolls have expanded exponentially among “nontraditional” voters. Thus, the political calculus about which pundits and talking-heads debate is not always what half the electorate worries about. The national debt, the annual deficit, the problems with ObamaCare, the tax code — all that matters very little. The key question for millions of voters in 2012 will be simply who ensures that my check arrives unchanged or augmented, and who either stops or reduces it.

File Closed
Patient Obama presents us with multifaceted, but now chronic and well-recognized symptoms. They reflect a variety of maladies that nevertheless form an identifiable syndrome. There is no real therapy to be recommended since the illness will have to run its course, with a prognosis that remains uncertain until it resolves one way or another in about two years — or in late 2012.


Read more incredible Victor Davis Hanson here.

SANTA CRUZ, CA TOWN CLOCK TAX DAY TEA PARTY RALLY



April 15, 2011 – All Day

Help us celebrate the 2nd anniversary of one of the greatest movements in history!

T.E.A.  PARTY  RALLY

Town Clock & Post Office in beautiful downtown Santa Cruz

All are welcome!

HERE'S A FOOD STAMP GRAPH THAT WILL RUIN YOUR DAY

If ever we wondered just how out-of-control this administration's spending is, nothing makes an example better than the number of people now dependent on government. This includes government jobs (doubled), food (off the charts), housing (in the tank), transportation (non-existent), energy resources (doubled), loans (pray), welfare, unemployment, and the list goes on.

At this point, it is becoming clear our real battle is in the budget and reducing the debt limit -- not increasing it. I'm done with what has become another $30 or $40 billion dollar reduction in the grand scheme of things. This is getting serious, but the politicians are playing Monopoly, rather then their constitutional role of advise & consent.

In line with the upcoming budget and deficit battle, this Food Stamps graph is just from 2008! A clear example of Obama's spending problem. From Moe Lane at Red State:

Here's a Food Stamp Graph That Will Ruin Your Day
Moe Lane - April 3, 2011

Because why have a nice, sunny morning? We probably can’t afford those anymore, anyhow.

H/T AoSHQ Headlines:

The Clarion Advisory

Primed by the financial meltdown; took off like a rocket in January 2009, and is now reaching for the stars. Over 44 million on the rolls (somewhere around 14.3% of the population), which is about 14 million or so more than when this administration took office. The graph is sufficiently grim and depressing on its own to make further commentary largely unnecessary, but I will add one sardonic comment. If current conditions are what the White House considers to be “our economic recovery,” then let me be clear: You’re Doing It Wrong.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Benefits are down, too. A little counter-intuitive, given that the time frame is the Democratic party’s control of the government… no, wait, in that case it’s not counter-intuitive at all.

WHAT WOULD DEMOCRATS CUT?

As Congress finally returns to work, many are reflecting whether or not they made the right choice in the GOP's "second chance" election. This doubt began within a few short weeks of the historic November 2010 election shellacking, and the shellacking began to fade away, as the Democrats appeared unsinged.

Democrats skillfully morphed into the role of savior of imminent tax increases, Don't Ask Don't Tell reformer, a Christmas present of another 13 week extension of subsidized unemployment for an unbelievable total of 99 weeks, another generous gift of a one year 2 percent social security tax savings for employees only, plus more goodies for our stocking. Net effect -- a Republican Party all of a sudden on the defense -- again!

To make matters worse, the GOP has appeared weak in standing by their pledge to reduce the debt, reduce the budget, and crack down on Democrat spending. In fact, it's laughable. A $100 Billion promise turned in to different bills no higher that $61 Billion, and the percentage of reduction to national debt is not worth a "Gazunteit".

This week, as the GOP again takes the helm, it's time to re-ignite the message of the Nov 2010 elections. Just think about the fact that the Bush budget had a deficit of $163 Billion for the year 2007. The budget deficit was a record $222.5 Billion in February 2011, the shortest month (one month!) of the year. The GOP has to get a backbone and stand up to the bullies.

Obama's advisors remember how his popularity grew after the December tax deal, and they are doing their best to replicate that success. For Senate Democrats and Obama, partisan politics is the name of the game.

Fear kills. Rather than worrying about taking blame for shutting down the government, the GOP should take credit for lowering the deficit, spending and debt, and for finally taking steps to avoid a real government shut down. Quit passing it on to the next Congress. Be a man. Do it now!

The longer you are in a problem, the less likely you are to solve it.

When the Dems are in power, they steamroll the GOP, the rules, and anything that gets in their way. Why are the old school Republicans so spineless?!? That’s why we voted in the Young Lions and gave the Republican Party a second chance.

If we need a reminder to re-ignite this flame, remember what has happened over the last 2½ years. The Morning Bell from Heritage Foundation gives us a prospective of what Democrats would cut... nothing. Can the Republicans stand up and demand (not ask pretty please) better? Isn't that why so many rallied on their behalf? As they get back to work, it's time to remind them. Contact numbers can be found at TheOrator.com

What Would Democrats Cut?
by The Heritage Foundation, Conn Carroll - March 28, 2011

As a third temporary spending bill expires next week, the attention of Capitol Hill will once again be focused on producing a permanent spending bill to keep the federal government open and operating. The threat of a government shutdown would not exist had the Democratically controlled 111th Congress passed a budget for this fiscal year. In fact, not only did they fail to pass a budget, but for the for the first time in the history of the budget-making process, last year’s Congress failed to even vote on a budget. And now, even as the consequences of their failure are just days a way, the Democrats have still failed to agree on a plan that cuts spending.

Thirty-eight days ago, on February 19, the House of Representatives passed a budget that would keep the federal government open for the rest of this fiscal year. Responding to the overwhelming mandate from the American people delivered last November to cut federal spending, that House budget cut $61 billion in spending from 2010 levels. The Democrats then produced a plan that they said “cut spending,” but even The Washington Post Fact Checker found no real cuts.

And they will not even go on record identifying which cuts in the House’s bill they are willing to accept. The Post explains why: “Such a move would force Democrats to go on record defending programs that Republicans had identified as wasteful.”

It is understandable why the Senate is so afraid to offer its own spending plan. When the President offered his own budget for next year, he claimed that it would produce only a $7.2 trillion deficit over the next 10 years. At the time, we predicted that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) would produce vastly different numbers, since the President’s proposal included audaciously hopeful economic forecasts and fake spending cuts. Sure enough, on March 18 the CBO scored the President’s budget as causing $9.5 trillion in deficits over the next 10 years. That is more debt than the federal government accumulated from 1789 to 2010 combined. Heritage analyst Brian Riedl surveys the damage:

These large deficits will persist because the President’s steep tax hikes cannot keep up with his runaway spending. Relative to the historical averages (which were also pre-recession levels), President Obama would raise taxes by 1.3 percent of GDP yet increase spending by 4 percent of GDP. The main drivers of runaway spending—surging Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid costs—would not be reformed at all. Accordingly, the annual cost of interest on the national debt would quadruple.
…
Under President Obama’s budget proposal, taxpayers would see large tax increases, bigger government, and slower economic growth. The President who declared that “I didn’t come here to pass our problems on to the next President or the next generation—I’m here to solve them” would, over the next decade, drop an additional $80,000 per household in debt onto the laps of our children and grandchildren.

The White House spent all of 2010 deflecting criticism about its deficit spending by pointing to the President’s debt commission. Then when the commission finally produced a report that included actual spending cuts, the White House couldn’t run from it fast enough. Congressional Democrats have no plan to cut government this year, next year, or any year. Conservatives should hold firm to their $61 billion in cuts and force Democrats to produce their own spending cut plan.

More MORNING BELL here.

THE DAMAGE OBAMA HAS DONE

With his new budget, Obama not only ducked our economic problems, he gave it his famous finger.  What was it that Tennessee Ernie Ford said -- "Another day older, and deeper in debt!  Saint Peter dontcha call me, 'cause I can't go.  I owe my soul to the company sto'e (that's the White House, my friends)" Debt, debt, debt.  Debt for you, for me, for our children, and for our grandchildren.  It's sinful, and the man in the White House has no conscience.

"It's Debt On Arrival", Congressman Paul Ryan said.  If anyone thought for a moment that Obama was going Clinton on us, guess his budget will clear up his latest lie.  Ironically, Obama is spouting how much cuts he's made, and [just like the so-called tax credits he made] are non existant, or so miniscual, they're not worth mentioning.  The $3.7 Trillion budget is an insult, and rather than showing true leadership, Obama's turned a serious state of affairs in to a game of cat and mouse.

The Democrat Party is surely not the Democrat Party of old, where a young President began his historic leadership with the words, "Ask not what your country can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your country."  But the 1960s radicals of those days are now running the asylum, and Barack Obama has just poked America in the eye with his atrocious budget.

Couple that with the events happening in Wisconsin.  Union mobs trying to hog tie the state government for attempting to get the out-of-control spending under control.  Same thing in New Jersey.  The public unions are bankrupting the country, and people are waking up to it.  We're broke, and it's getting worse.  The time of corrupt out-of-control spending is over.

From Dick Morris, a chart that will knock your socks off.  It's stunning!  Digest it, and keep the fires burning under the feet of our congressional representatives -- federal and state.

The Damage Obama Has Done
by Dick Morris & Eileen McGann - February 15, 2011

The mainstream media does not cover the full extent of the damage the Obama Administration has inflicted on this country. Even FOX News often doesn't have the time to go into sufficient depth to explain what is happening.

From our friend Ruth S. King comes a chart which all of us should read and absorb, sobering though it may be:

Just take this last item: In the last two years we have accumulated national debt at a rate more than 27 times as fast as during the rest of our entire nation's history. Over 27 times as fast! Metaphorically, speaking, if you are driving in the right lane doing 65 MPH and a car rockets past you in the left lane 27 times faster . . . it would be doing 1,755 MPH!

Sources:
(1) U.S. Energy Information Administration; (2) Wall Street Journal; (3) Bureau of Labor Statistics; (4) Census Bureau; (5) USDA; (6) U.S. Dept. of Labor; (7) FHFA; (8) Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller; (9) RealtyTrac; (10) Heritage Foundation and WSJ; (11) The Conference Board; (12) FDIC; (13) Federal Reserve; (14) U.S. Treasury

In our new book, Revolt! (Due out March 1 – you can pre-order autographed copies now at DickMorris.com) we explain how Obama has wrecked our economy and chart a path to reverse the damage and defeat him in 2012.

These numbers make it crystal clear how crucial these two tasks really are!

Read more of his columns at DickMorris.com

WILL THE REAL NEWT GINGRICH PLEASE STAND UP?

Here we go again. Newt Gingrich? Too many choices for the Republican ticket, and too many old and worn out ones at that, with not enough declared new faces. RINO Romney, who endorsed Mary Bono Mack, who voted FOR Cap & Trade, or Huckabee, who is more concerned with "governing" than standing on principle, and pardons criminals who go back to a life of crime -- one killing four police officers. That being said, I'm old enough to remember the waffling of Newt Gingrich on core issues. Not as bad as The Chosen One, but bad enough.

Back during early 2008 (pre the Tea Party Movement, I might add), it was Newt Gingrich who said "The Reagan era is over. The George W. Bush era is over. We're at a point in time when we're about to start redefining -- as a number of people started talking about, starting to redefine -- the nature of the Republican Party, in response to what the country needs."

Now that Newt has seen where the wind is blowing (sometime after the infamous summer of 2009, and the shellacking he got for endorsing Dede Scozzafava in the NY-23 special election over the Tea Party favorite Doug Hoffman), he has radically changed his tune. Sound familiar?

But, that's not the worst of it. Back during his reign in the House of Representatives, under his Contract for America, he made so made about turns, it was unrecognizable. He has cozied up with some of the left's most popular: Al "race baiting" Sharpton, Nancy "Stretch" Pelosi, Al "Global Warming" Gore, cozying up with Hillary[Care] Clinton, and playing goverment spending footsie with the other Clinton in the 1990s.

Here's a good one, from Devvy Kidd "Mr. Gingrich struts around like he's Thomas Jefferson. Nothing could be farther from the truth."

Another informative reminder is the JBS Exposé "The Real Newt Gingrich".

Newt's numbers are creeping up -- No thank you. I keep looking for that fresh blood, kinda Reaganesque. Do we really need another Jeckle-Hyde president? I think not.

ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS, MR. PRESIDENT

"Actions speak louder than words." An old tried & true proverb said to me by my Mother over an entire childhood, and passed on by many common sense thinking families. Obama's State of the Union (SOTU) pep rally was so full of hyperbole, I lost count.

Watching the State of the Union address was as painful as last year's, and I kept hoping for another "You Lie!" outburst, because his speech was full of contradictions. Time after time we have heard: (h/t Mark Levin)

APRIL 9, 2009 – "And we will not rest until we reach a day when not one single veteran falls into homelessness"

MAY 11, 2009 – "I will not rest until the dream of health care reform is finally achieved in the United States of America"

NOVEMBER 2, 2009 – "We will not rest until we are succeeding in generating the jobs that this economy needs"

NOVEMBER 23, 2009 – "I will not rest until business are investing again, and businesses are hiring again"

JANUARY 28, 2010 - "We will not rest until we build an economy that's ready for America's future"

MARCH 5 2010 – "I’m not gonna rest & my administration is not gonna rest in our efforts to help people who are looking to find a job"

MAY 26, 2010 – "We will not rest until this well is shut, the environment is repaired and the clean up is complete"

JULY 8, 2010 – "My administration will not rest until every American who is able and ready and willing to work can find a job"

... and all the while, the only things Obama focused on like a laser was advancing his 'redistribution of wealth' agenda: Obamacare, Financial Control, Cap & Trade, Internet and Talk Radio control, a failed Stimulus, empowering the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), growth of government, and ever increasing deficit spending.

It took some 35 minutes before Obama ever mentioned our looming deficit, albiet briefly with embarrassingly low-ball resolutions, while in the same speech stating a broken economy must "invest" more. His reference to a "Sputnik Moment" is laughable, when it was himself who put the kibosh on NASA.  More empty Obama speak, as he attempts to hide the truth.

We have a man in the White House who clearly does not know what he is doing, or how to fix a country on the brink of disaster. We have a man in the White House who is more comfortable on a soap box campaigning, as he has done for the last two years, dining out, vacationing, playing sports while 'Rome is burning'.

As Charles Krauthammer said in his great piece "Deaf on debt: Returning to old liberal ideas, President Obama ignores the American people":

From the moon landing to solar shingles. Is there a better example of American decline?

So much for our "Sputnik moment".

The only way we can save our great country is to stay on top of our elected representatives, hold their feet to the fire, get rid of the weak-kneed moderates, and "Focus Like a Laser" in getting a constitutional conservative in the White House in 2012!

Senator Jim DeMint has some excellent suggestions in a recent email:

Actions Speak Louder Than Words, Mr. President
by Senator Jim DeMint - January 26, 2011

Dear Fellow Conservative:

The President used his State of the Union Address last night to disguise his liberal agenda in free-market, conservative rhetoric. Yet the specific policies he promoted are part of a deliberate strategy to grow the government at the expense of our personal freedoms and jobs.

For all of the talk in the media about how the President is moving to the center, he asked Congress last night to increase the role of the federal government in almost every area of our lives.

Rather than acknowledging the failure of his stimulus program to create jobs, the President claimed it saved our economy. Even worse, he called for more stimulus spending to "win the future".

You and I know that winning the future requires less government and more freedom, not the other way around.

Our Constitution is not indifferent toward liberal and conservative policies. It enumerates the very limited powers of the federal government and reserves everything else for the states.

Instead of calling for more federal intervention in our schools, the President should have called for reforms to allow states to opt-out of the ineffective and burdensome No Child Left Behind law.

Instead of calling for more federal intervention in our nation's highway system, he should have called on Congress to devolve these decisions to the states, which can build their own roads and bridges.

Instead of calling for a freeze in spending, the President should have called for a dramatic cut in spending to limit the size of government and balance the budget.

In nearly every area, the President is pushing America in the wrong direction. Unless Americans see through the rhetoric and stop his policies, we will lose our future. It's that simple.

Americans overwhelmingly elected Republicans this past election so they would put the brakes on the President's liberal agenda. I take that mandate very seriously and will do everything I can to stop the massive spending, takeovers, and debt that are destroying our country.

That is why I am introducing legislation in the Senate today to repeal the President's unconstitutional takeover of our nation's health care system.

The health care law was rammed through Congress despite widespread opposition from the American people. Yet the President told us last night to give up on repealing it, make only minor changes, and leave this experiment in socialism in place so it can strangle the greatest health care system in the world.

Not on my watch.

I'm not going to tell my children and grandchildren that I was around for this and failed to do everything I could to stop it.

Please contact your senators and encourage them to support the full repeal of the President's health care takeover.

Listening to the President last night reminded me of how much work we have to do to save the country we love. Even though we won many victories in the past election, the world's greatest salesman of socialism remains in the White House.

Fortunately, many Americans like you are alarmed by the direction of country and are taking positive action to send new leaders to Washington who will fight to save our country.

Thank you for your continued support and encouragement. Together, we can and we will secure America's future.

Respectfully,

Jim DeMint
United States Senator
Chairman, Senate Conservatives Fund

WHY LIBERALS HATE THE CONSTITUTION

Nothing irritates the Left more than being caught in a lie.  Reading the Consitutiton in the opening session of the 112th Congress was nothing less than a revelation of how far it has been abused, and why the Left doth protest too much.  It's something that should be done before every new session.

After the shellacking Obama received, and his desire for another term, he has cooled his jets with his new-found moderation.  Can he win?  Youbetcha.  Are we just one-quarter through a two term Obama presidency?  Perish the thought, but Clinton did it, with the help of conservative Dick Morris, and Obama now has Chicago's Bill Daley to do the same.

As Obama has done for the past two years, the next two will be an endless barrage of campaign rhetoric, altering his image in the process, and making it even more difficult to bear.  But conservatives can hold his feet to the fire by making him accountable for his true hard left dogmatism.  If the Republican Party caves to ridiculous pressures such as 'moderation', meeting in the middle with Obama, 'civility', accusations of 'racism', and everything else the Left throws at conservatives, Obama will win, and we will have six more years of him -- at least!

Remembering Reagan, if the GOP sticks to its conservative values, Obama can be beat.  Don't let him hide behind the podium.  Press him on all his pet policies such as Obamacare, press him on reducing [and balancing] the budget, on card check unionization, on carbon tax, on de-regulating small banks, on the FCC controlling talk radio and the internet.  Make him talk about it.  Eventually, his ego won't be able to resist it.

The lame-duck session was not a good sign, but this month the GOP has taken promising steps, including their $2.5 Trillion dollar spending cut proposal.  They need to keep the pressure on, and use this as leverage against the upcoming debt increase.  Force Obama to sign the spending cut, or make him defend why he needs to keep increased spending.  Wonder how centrist that will sound.

If Republicans are to win in 2012, they must force Obama to defend his policies and his actions for the past two years, rather than hide behind the phony moderate he has been playing since his shellacking and the about-face he took on the Bush tax rates.  He would like nothing more than to have the voting public forget his past progressivism of the last two years.  His actions must remain in the forefront in 2011 and 2012, the actions that cost his Party the election last November.  We can never forget.  Remember Pelosi?  Remember Reid?  Remember the backdoor deals behind locked doors?  Remember the name calling of tea partiers?

Who creates a climate of hate? Liberals would have you believe they are the party of the middle class, when history has shown over and over again how they repress and stifle freedoms. From voting against the Civil Rights Movement,to Woodrow Wilson's well hidden demonic rule, and the myth of FDR.

This excellent piece by Frank J. Fleming in Pajamas Media, while laced with humor, is shocking in its truth. Liberalism is truly a mental disorder, and I, for one, keep a pocket Constitution on me at all times.

Why Liberals Hate the Constitution
No matter how much liberals try to mystify the Constitution and obscure its meaning, hearing the actual text of the document quickly destroys that fiction.
by Frank J. Fleming - January 13, 2011

Since there are many more conservatives than liberals, and conservatives have so many guns, people often wonder why conservatives don’t just round up all the liberals and ship them to Antarctica to be forced to mine for jewels and gold. Well, there is a very good reason for that: by a strict constructionist interpretation of the American Constitution, there is no support for being able to deport liberals to a mining camp.

Now, if conservatives were a bit more flexible with their view of the Constitution, they would say things like, “Well, we have to remember it’s a living document, and the Founding Fathers hadn’t even thought of the threat of hippies running around free when they wrote it.” And then they’d look to the Commerce Clause and say, “Well, keeping liberals from meddling in America and forcing them do something useful like mining sure would help the economy, so it’s within the government’s power.” And then it’d just be a manner of scheduling all the boats to get liberals to Antarctica.

But that would violate the spirit of the Constitution since, by plain English interpretations of the government’s powers, we can’t forcefully ship liberals to Antarctica no matter how much people may think that would help the country. And that’s the point of the Constitution: people are constantly changing their ideas of what is good and bad, but the Constitution is much harder to change. It puts limits on what the government can do, and those limits can only be changed when huge majorities agree to it through the amendment process. And even after ObamaCare, there inexplicably isn’t enough support for a “Liberals Are to Be Sent to Mines in Antarctica” amendment.

After the hysterical way liberals reacted to the reading of the Constitution by Republicans to open Congress, with Democrats objecting to it, left-wing newspaper editorials denouncing it, and liberals online freaking out over it, no reasonable person would argue that liberals don’t hate the Constitution, but the reasons why aren’t as obvious. So the question becomes, why do liberals hate the Constitution so much — especially when it’s the only thing protecting them from freezing to death with pickaxes in their hands?

We are all aware that liberals want the Constitution to be a living document, like if Geppetto wanted Pinocchio to become a real boy so it would be easier to strangle him to death. They want it living so they can render its words meaningless. To them, the Constitution is this cryptic document only the most educated Ivy Leaguers are able to interpret. Recently, the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein even stated that “the text is confusing because it was written more than 100 years ago.” And then we have all these court decisions — much longer than the document itself – that find all these hidden rights not mentioned in the Constitution and explain away the ones that are clearly stated. And don’t argue with liberals on the subject, because they’re really smart and the only ones able to understand what they’re talking about.

Thus the freakout over the Constitution being read aloud. No matter how much liberals try to mystify the Constitution and obscure its meaning, hearing the actual text of the document quickly destroys that fiction. It almost reads like a direct condemnation of all the government expansion and power grabs liberals have been up to lately. You can’t hear its words without imagining the ghost of George Washington punching hippies. So you can see why they’d rather it not be brought to the public’s attention.

A big way gun rights proponents won their war was by putting the text of the 2nd Amendment everywhere. While “scholars” liked to pretend there was some debate on whether there is an individual right to bear arms, there wasn’t among the general public because anyone literate could read the amendment and quickly identify that the only operative part is “the right to bear arms shall not be infringed.” Words mean things to most people, so asking the average American whether there is a right to bear arms is like asking what two plus two equals. Ask a liberal judge, though, and he’ll say, “Two and two of what? And ‘equals’ can mean so many things. It’s a very complicated question.” So when people see the long, rambling reasons from someone like Justice Breyer on why the 2nd Amendment doesn’t mean what it says versus the simple language of the Constitution, they start to realize they’d be much better served by having a twelve-year-old with basic reading comprehension as a justice.

The Constitution meaning what it says is only part of the problem liberals have with it, though. In the Constitution are the means to change the Constitution, and liberals are perfectly capable of proposing amendments to force people to buy health care or to get haters like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck off the air. Of course, they’d need to get a huge majority of the country to go along with them. And there is the problem. If the Constitution puts strict limits on government power and the only way for liberals to increase that power is to get a huge majority of the public to agree with them, then liberals would have to govern with the consent of the governed! Think of the indecency; liberals could barely do anything unless those nasty Tea Party people and fans of Sarah Palin said it was okay!

And while liberals do like certain freedoms, in their hearts they don’t really like this whole democracy thing. If liberals were only voting amongst each other, that would be great, but you can’t actually let everyone — some who only went to community college — have a say in what the government can and can’t do. Much better to have only the elites deciding themselves what they can do, based on their best intentions. It’s like what now ex-Representative Phil Hare said when questioned on the constitutionality of ObamaCare: He didn’t worry about the Constitution. If liberals are trying to change things for the better, why should there be any limits on them… especially ones enforced by the ignorant masses?

And so liberals hope that no one reads the Constitution and that everyone leaves all the questions of what the government can do to left-wing judges who will make decisions based on what they feel is right. Then liberals will be freed from having to get the consent of the unenlightened American public who give their kids Happy Meals and eat trans-fats. They will then have the ability to force people to do what’s best and give the government all the power it needs for a better, more ordered, peaceful society.

Until they’re shipped off to the mines.

Frank J. Fleming writes political humor at IMAO.us and isn't sure whether there are gold and gems to mine for in Antarctica, but that's besides the point.