My Pick Of The Litter Today

The Real Reasons Conservatives Oppose Gingrich

by Peter Wehner

In an intense primary battle, a lot of silly things are said. (Many of them, it turns out, are said by Sarah Palin, who seems intent on confirming every negative thing her critics have said about her.) Among them is the charge, repeated like rounds fired from a machine gun, that opposition to Newt Gingrich is based on those in the “establishment” who fear the scale of change he would bring to Washington. If you’re for Gingrich, so goes this story line, you’re for “genuine” and “fundamental” change. If you oppose Gingrich, on the other hand, you’re for “managing the decay” of America.

Except for this. The single most important idea, when it comes to fundamentally changing Washington, is the budget plan put forward by Representative Paul Ryan last April. When most massive-scale-of-change conservatives were defending Ryan’s plan against scorching criticisms from the left, Gingrich described the plan as an example of “right-wing social engineering.” It was Gingrich, not the rest of us, who was counseling caution, timidity, and an unwillingness to shape (rather than follow) public opinion. (The Medicare reform plan Gingrich eventually put out wasn’t nearly as bold and far-reaching as the one put out by Governor Romney.)

So much for Mr. Fundamental Change.

More: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/01/30/conservatives-oppose-gingrich/

    Stories/Articles You Might Find Interesting – or not

Gingrich, with ‘big tent’ philosophy, has backed centrist GOP candidates

Newt Gingrich has argued he’s conservatives’ choice to take on President Obama this fall, but in past high-profile Republican primaries, he’s backed the more centrist candidate.

Gingrich has long advocated for President Reagan’s “big tent” approach to governing.He backed state Rep. Dede Scozzafava (R) over Tea Party favorite Doug Hoffman in a hotly contested upstate New York special House election in 2009. And he backed a pro-abortion-rights primary foe over Joe Scarborough in Scarborough’s first run for Congress in 1994. The former Speaker also asked then-New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, an avowed centrist, to give the Republican response to President Clinton’s 1995 State of the Union address.

 Gingrich’s support of a few centrists pales in comparison to Mitt Romney’s past vote in a Democratic presidential primary or Romney’s statement during his 1994 Senate race that he was “an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush.” 

But it contradicts one of the central arguments of Gingrich’s campaign: that as a true “Reagan conservative,” he would be a better general-election candidate than Romney, whom he has repeatedly called a “Massachusetts moderate.”

“Why would anyone in the establishment think that a Massachusetts moderate, which is a liberal by Republican standards — pro-abortion, pro-gun control, pro-tax increase, pro-gay rights — why would they think he’s going to be able to debate Barack Obama?” Gingrich said at a Jacksonville rally on Monday.

That statement seems to contradict repeated calls in the past for a “big tent” coalition that embraced differing viewpoints in order to govern. 

“It’s impossible to create a right-only majority in America,” Gingrich said at a forum of the centrist Republican Main Street Partnership in 2004. “The key to electing Republicans to more offices and hav[ing] a bigger majority is to be more inclusive.”

“Gingrich could have one heck of a Lincoln-Douglas debate with himself when it comes to the posture of the Republican Party of the general election,” said professor Jack Pitney of Claremont McKenna College, who has long followed Gingrich’s career. “There’s Newt the big-tent Republican, the believer in appealing to the center, and Newt the hardcore conservative who wants to appeal to the base and draw contrasts.”

More: http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/207539-gingrich-with-big-tent-philosophy-has-backed-centrist-gop-candidates

 Why GOP Primaries Didn’t Matter In 1952-1980 and 2012

 Contraceptive mandate could face tough sledding in Supreme Court

The healthcare law’s mandate to require religious-affiliated employers to pay for contraception for their workers has prompted two lawsuits. If the matter gets to the Supreme Court, it will go before justices who recently affirmed — in a 9-0 ruling — that the 1st Amendment gives special leeway to religious employers.

More: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-contraception-20120131,0,5324593.story

 The Boy Scout Gets Rough

Newt Gingrich — a man who once blamed American liberalism for the Columbine massacre and said that a woman’s murder of her own children in 1993 was a call to the country to vote Republican — is, frankly, shocked by the injustice of Mitt Romney’s harsh attacks on him.

A sputtering Gingrich said Sunday, “I don’t know how you debate a person in the civil, being civil, when he stands there and just blatantly doesn’t tell the truth.” The former speaker seemed to think this complaint against Romney would help him with Florida’s voters. In fact, it probably helped seal his doom today in the Sunshine State’s GOP primary.

More: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_boy_scout_gets_rough_ErkJwHYD2l3CPWtakbX7oL 

The Great Divorce

by David Brooks

I’ll be shocked if there’s another book this year as important as Charles Murray’s “Coming Apart.” I’ll be shocked if there’s another book that so compellingly describes the most important trends in American society.

 Murray’s basic argument is not new, that America is dividing into a two-caste society. What’s impressive is the incredible data he produces to illustrate that trend and deepen our understanding of it.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/opinion/brooks-the-great-divorce.html?_r=1

 Gingrich pushes Santorum to drop out

GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says rival Rick Santorum should take a look at the poll numbers, which show Gingrich beating him, and drop out.  

“The longer conservatives stay split, the harder it’s going to be for us to [beat Romney],” Gingrich said on FOX and Friends on Tuesday. “And I think that we risk not being able to beat Obama unless we get a conservative. I have to win the nomination.”

Santorum is sapping conservative votes from Gingrich, the former House speaker said. Santorum, appearing just moments after Gingrich, countered.

“I don’t think either one of them are the right choice,” Santorum said, referring to Gingrich and front-runner Mitt Romney. “And if you want to look at the real conservative, we’re the real conservative that can win.”

Santorum touted his victory in Iowa as an advantage he still holds over both candidates.

“Neither Governor Romney nor Newt Gingrich had run as a conservative in a state we had to win. …. I’ve done it,” Santorum said.

But he did not suggest that Gingrich should drop out of the race.

“My message is everybody should run, whoever wants to run and be in this race. I don’t think people should be telling other folks to ‘get out of the race and get out of my way,’” Santorum said.

Link:  http://nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/gingrich-pushes-santorum-to-drop-out-20120131?mrefid=election2012

I am not a Santorum fan, I don’t “like” Social Conservatives much, but he is certainly a lot “classier” and more presidential than noxious Newt could ever be. I “could” vote for Santorum. I couldn’t, under any circumstances, vote for Gingrich.

45% think free trade good for U.S.

Link: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/general_business/january_2012/45_think_free_trade_good_for_u_s_28_disagree

Romney seen as more presidential/sincere than Gingrich

Candidates are tied on understanding the problems Americans face

Link: http://www.gallup.com/poll/152348/Romney-Seen-More-Presidential-Sincere-Gingrich.aspx

Image of the day from the animal kingdom:

I’ve heard of Moose and Squirrel, but Moose and Cat? Nope.

With it’s deadly drones the U. S. is fighting a coward’s war

The ancient Greeks, unlike the Jews or the Christians, invested their gods with human failings. Divine judgment, they believed, was neither flawless nor dispassionate; it was warped by lust, vengeance and self-interest. In the hands of Zeus, the thunderbolt was both an instrument of justice and a weapon of jealousy and revenge.

Those now dispensing judgment from on high are not gods, though they must feel like it. The people striking mortals down with drones are doubtless as capable as anyone else of self-deception, denial and cognitive illusions. More so, perhaps, as the eminent fictions of the Bush years and the growing delusions of the current president suggest.

Barack Obama began last week’s state of the union address by claiming that the troops who had fought the Iraq war had “made the United States safer and more respected around the world”. Like Bush, like the gods, he has begun to create the world he wants to inhabit.

These power-damaged people have been granted the chance to fulfil one of humankind’s abiding fantasies: to vaporise their enemies, as if with a curse or a prayer, effortlessly and from a safe distance. That these powers are already being abused is suggested by the mendacity of those who are deploying them. The CIA, which is running the undeclared and unacknowledged drone war in Pakistan, insists that there have been no recent civilian casualties. So does Obama’s chief counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan. It is a blatant whitewash.

As a report last year by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism showed, of some 2,300 people killed by US drone strikes in Pakistan from 2004 until August 2011, between 392 and 781 appear to have been civilians; 175 were children. In the period about which the CIA and Brennan made their claims, at least 45 civilians have been killed. As soon as an agency claims “we never make mistakes”, you know that it has lost its moorings, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn suggested in his story of that title. Feeling no obligation to apologise or explain, count bodies or answer for its crimes, it becomes a danger to humanity.

It may be true, as the US air force says, that because a drone can circle and study a target for hours before it strikes, its missiles are less likely to kill civilians than those launched from a piloted plane. (The air force has yet to explain how it reconciles this with its boast that drones “greatly shorten decision time”.) But it must also be true that the easier and less risky a deployment is, the more likely it is to happen.

This danger is acknowledged in a remarkably candid assessment published by the UK’s Ministry of Defence, which also deploys drones, and has also used them to kill civilians. It maintains that the undeclared air war in Pakistan and Yemen “is totally a function of the existence of an unmanned capability – it is unlikely a similar scale of force would be used if this capability were not available”. Citing the German military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, it warns that the brutality of war seldom escalates to its absolute form, partly because of the risk faced by one’s own forces. Without risk, there’s less restraint. With these unmanned craft, governments can fight a coward’s war, a god’s war, harming only the unnamed.

link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/30/deadly-drones-us-cowards-war

 What’s Going On In The World?

European Politicians in denial as Greece unravels

Martial music booms from the loudspeakers as warlike images gallop across monitors. A short euro crisis film montage shows police officers being posted in front of the parliament building in Athens and the jostling of frantic reporters, then US investor George Soros uses grim words in an appeal to rescue the euro zone. “The alternative is just too terrible to contemplate,” he says.

Speaking in a panel that follows the short film, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has a gloomy expression. It is last Friday when the global business elite were at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to discuss the “Future of the Euro Zone.” It becomes quickly apparent that Schäuble would have preferred a different opening than the dark film for this event. The negotiations with Athens’ private creditors are going well, he says, and he points out that he is “quite optimistic” Greececan be rescued. 

But later European Union Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn, standing next to the stage, imparts a very different message to reporters. He concedes that Athens needs money once again, but that he cannot yet reveal just how much. Nevertheless, he adds, it is “likely” that the donor countries will have to come up with “a slightly larger contribution.”

Once again, Europe is arguing over a bailout for Greece, and it looks as though the result will be no different that it has been in the past. German Chancellor Angela Merkel opposed lending money to Athens in early 2010, and then the first bailout package for Greece was put together. A year later, she balked at further aid, and then came the second program. Now she is trying to protect the euro zone’s coffers once again, though no one in Berlin or Brussels is willing to bet that she will have more success this time around.

Europe’s politicians continue to battle reality. Everyone knows that Greece cannot repay its massive pile of debts, now at more than €350 billion ($459 billion). But instead of effectively reducing the financial burden, European politicians intend to approve new loans for the government in Athens and go on fighting debt with new debt. “If the country wants to remain in the euro zone, we should support it,” says Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann.

link: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,812194,00.html

Quote For Today:

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt

  My Pick Of The Litter Today

Paul Ryan: Senate Democrats Haven’t Passed a Budget in 1005 Days

On Sunday, Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) appeared on Fox News to answer a number of different questions on a range of topics. Sitting down with Chris Wallace, Ryan discussed the President’s State of the Union address, his reelection campaign, and the failure of the Democratic-controlled Senate to pass a budget in almost three years. He exposed President Obama’s populism and debunked the notion that Republicans only want to “protect the rich.” Interestingly, he explained how the President’s proposed taxes increases, which he outlined last Tuesday, will only cover eight percent of his proposed spending increases. What a surprise. The rest, of course, will be paid for by borrowing money from overseas. He also offered a number of ways to get our fiscal house in order, such as ending corporate welfare and giving tax breaks to small businesses.

Most of all, however, he convincingly argued that President Obama and his Senate acolytes — after three years in office — have demonstrably failed to solve the nation’s problems in any meaningful way. And that, in turn, is why America’s fiscal crisis is only getting worse.

More: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/danieldoherty/2012/01/29/paul_ryan_senate_democrats_havent_passed_a_budget_in_1005_days

    Stories/Articles You Might Find Interesting – or not

The Political Cowardice Of Barack Obama

Now, a return to the American values of fair play and shared responsibility will help protect our people and our economy. But it should also guide us as we look to pay down our debt and invest in our future.—President Barack Obama, State of the Union, January 24, 2012

President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night was the latest reminder that the state of political discourse in America is shockingly low. I’m not singling out Obama for special condemnation, given that these addresses always are a potpourri of banalities, regardless of which president is offering them. Yet Tuesday’s address was a vivid reminder of the shoddy thinking so common at the highest level of the federal and state governments and why we are—in the more precise, but less lofty words of a former president—in deep doo doo.

Criminologists have remarked on “the banality of crime,” the idea that most criminals are not dark geniuses, but ordinary dolts driven by the basest motives. The State of the Union is the ultimate example for the banality of American politics, of the reality that the people who want to reform us haven’t the slightest clue about anything. They are predictable and bland, traders in base ideas and driven mainly by ego and the desire to help those groups that assure their re-election. California is the starkest example. A friend of mine called the other day and told me that it finally dawned on him that Gov. Jerry Brown, despite his clever word plays is really not so brilliant. Here’s a man who actually believes that raising taxes and “investing” in green jobs will save California.

More: http://reason.com/archives/2012/01/27/the-political-cowardice-of-barack-obama

Palin, Stalin and Alinsky

Just a week ago, some of Sarah Palin’s fans were attempting to give the former Alaska governor a little bit of the credit for Newt Gingrich’s second surge and his victory in South Carolina. Bill Kristol said as much in the Weekly Standard’s blog and wondered what would happen if she “really comes out for Newt.” While I think the evidence of a Palin connection to what happened in the Palmetto state seems to be more the product of the imagination of Palinites than anything else, there was no harm in allowing her to jump on the short-lived Gingrich bandwagon. But the quick decline of the candidate she seemed to be favoring appears to have angered the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, and the latest blast from her Wasilla Fortress of Solitude is yet another reminder why many conservatives find it difficult to take her seriously anymore.

In a posting on her Facebook page on Friday, Palin took aim at Gingrich’s critics with the sort of language that says more about her own lack of judgment than anything else. She claimed former Reagan administration officials who noted this week Gingrich was anything but a loyal soldier of the 40^th president were engaged in a “Stalin-esque rewriting of history.” This is not merely nonsensical, it is illustrative of the defects in her own character and intellect that have led many of us who once cheered her rise to conclude that she has no business ever putting herself forward for high office again.

While Gingrich supported Reagan and Mitt Romney did not, those who pointed out the former speaker’s often petulant and negative comments about the leader of his movement were merely illuminating a little-known aspect of the truth, not “re-writing” it. For Palin to use that over-the-top rhetoric — in effect comparing someone like Elliott Abrams to a communist monster — is contemptible. For her to go on in the same piece to say Gingrich’s critics were employing “Alinsky tactics at their worst” shows again she understands little about either Saul Alinsky’s writings or history.

More: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/01/29/palin-stalin-alinsky-gingrich-romney/

Al Sharpton and Sheila Jackson Lee Translate Racial Code

This whole “Differ with Barack Obama and You’re a Racist” thing is getting old.  Take for example Texas Democrat congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.  Sheila has already made it known that disagreeing with the first black president instantly makes you a racist.  Besides being at odds with Barack, more recently Jackson Lee has also declared racist any mention — by a white candidate, that is — of blue-collar work or, for that matter, any-color food stamps.

Thankfully, food stamps no longer come in a multicolored booklet that Sheila can scrutinize for racial undertones.  Even so, according to the congresswoman, Newt Gingrich daring to mention the words “food stamps” was inappropriate code whose intent was merely to “generate and signify race.”

Now, Sheila Jackson Lee’s official racially offended male counterpart, Reverend Al Sharpton, has decided that, if it seems rude and involves Obama and a Republican, it should immediately be exposed for what it is — racial antagonism.

The latest Republican to be installed in the Racist Hall of Shame is Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona.  After meeting and greeting President Obama on the tarmac of Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport and despite being sued by his administration, Governor Brewer invited him to have lunch and join her for a tour of the border.

Barack Obama, hypersensitive narcissist that he is, decided to disregard Brewer’s gracious welcome and instead chose to immediately address what he felt was the governor’s negative depiction of him as “patronizing” in her book Scorpions for Breakfast.  Referring to the confrontation, Brewer said that she “felt a bit threatened, if you will, in the attitude that he had.”

Exercising the type of feminist muscle liberals usually applaud, pint-sized Jan refused to be intimidated by Obama’s confrontational demeanor and fought back.  Thus, the newest addition to the “That’s Racist” laundry list: white governor refusing to be pushed around by black president.  And while pointing and wagging your finger in the face of anyone, let alone the president of the United States, is never a good idea, Sharpton’s assertion that Brewer’s spirited response to Obama’s rebuke was racist is a bit over the top.

Based on the incident, Al Sharpton also flagged as racist such mildly critical terms as “thin-skinned” and feeling “a bit threatened.”  Sirius XM radio host Joe Madison, who appeared on Reverend Sharpton’s MSNBC show Politics Nation, contributed the following to the indictment: “unacceptable” and “disrespectful” finger-pointing, refusing to apologize, asking to see a president’s college grades, and referring to President Obama by just his last name.

Speaking directly into the camera, Al Sharpton passionately addressed Jan Brewer directly, saying, “Thin-skinned?  You felt threatened?  What does that mean, you felt threatened?  By the president of the United States?  This is yet another example of disrespect and delegitimatizing this president.”  Hilary O. Shelton, senior vice president for advocacy and policy at the NAACP, concurred and posed a question of his own to Brewer: “What were you afraid he would do, steal your purse?”

More: http://pjmedia.com/blog/gop-states-saved-economy-in-2011/

 Republican lawmakers begin pushback against Obama recess appointments

Congressional Republicans are looking to employ a number of tactics, both conventional and novel, to push back against President Obama for his recent quartet of recess appointments.

GOP lawmakers are still steaming over the White House decision to ignore brief pro forma Senate sessions to single-handedly name three members to the National Labor Relations Board and Richard Cordray as the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Republicans have almost unanimously criticized the move as an unprecedented power grab that upturns nearly a century of precedent. But beyond irate statements, lawmakers are taking varied approaches to actually challenging the appointments.

More: http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/1007-other/207277-republican-lawmakers-begin-pushback-against-obama-recess-appointments-

Something To Think About

Shouldn’t the aim of an argument or a discussion be progress rather than victory?

Gingrich fade poses challenge for the Tea Party

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Newt Gingrich’s fast Florida fade is the latest indication that the Tea Party is losing its grip on the GOP, with the establishment poised to triumph once again.

An official endorsement Saturday night from last year’s Tea Party standout, Herman Cain; an all-but-official backing from longtime Tea Party darling Sarah Palin; and the support of the Tea Party Express have not lifted Gingrich back over Mitt Romney in the Florida polls. That weakened clout has been accompanied by the Republican establishment’s full-throttle charge at Gingrich’s past — to great effect with the primary here just one day away.

More: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/01/30/gingrichs_fade_poses_challenge_for_tea_party.html

 I do not watch “This Week”, although I might find it somewhat palatable with Jake Tapper on board. The presence of Donna Brazile makes the palatable, distinctly unpalatable. However I did find this George Will clip, and I loved it.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/01/29/george_will_were_at_the_horrid_stage_with_newt_gingrich.html

  Arizona State GOP Senator enters race to replace Giffords

Arizona state Sen. Frank Antenori (R) this morning announced his candidacy to succeed former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D).

This is his second run for Congress. He ran for the 8th district in 2006, when it was an open seat, but lost in the GOP primary.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) is expected to announce the dates of the primary and special election by 7 p.m. Saturday. By law, the primary must take place sometime in April and the general will occur in June.

Link: http://atr.rollcall.com/arizona-gop-state-senator-enters-race-to-replace-giffords/

 Who’s out of work but not unemployed ?

More: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/01/whos_out_of_work_but_not_unemployed.html

Romney ties Obama in swing states – Gingrich trails

PRINCETON, NJ — Registered voters in 12 key swing states are almost evenly split between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in their 2012 presidential election preferences, while giving a 14-percentage-point lead to Obama over Newt Gingrich. Swing-state voters also prefer Obama to Ron Paul and to Rick Santorum. Registered voters nationally express similar preferences, although Paul does slightly better at the national level than he does in the swing states.

Link: http://www.gallup.com/poll/152240/Romney-Ties-Obama-Swing-States-Gingrich-Trails.aspx

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has opened a double-digit lead in Florida as the perception grows among Republican primary voters that he is the strongest general election candidate against President Obama. The state’s GOP Primary is on Tuesday.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Florida Republican Primary Voters, conducted Saturday, shows Romney up by 16 points with 44% support. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is a distant second at 28%. 

Link: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2012/election_2012_presidential_election/florida/2012_florida_republican_primary

Image of the day from the animal kingdom:

Unless this is a “doggy daycare” someone needs to get a grip!

Maryland’s O’Malley wants to tax apps, e-books and other downloads

More: http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/maryland/2012/01/omalley-wants-tax-apps-e-books-other-downloads/2139996

 What’s Going On In The World? 

Iraq is angered by U.S. drones patrolling its skies

BAGHDAD — A month after the last American troops left Iraq, the State Department is operating a small fleet of surveillance drones here to help protect the United States Embassy and consulates, as well as American personnel. Some senior Iraqi officials expressed outrage at the program, saying the unarmed aircraft are an affront to Iraqi sovereignty.

Link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/world/middleeast/iraq-is-angered-by-us-drones-patrolling-its-skies.html?pagewanted=1

Quote For Today:

  “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” ~ Groucho Marx

Sunday Sermon

 The Easier Path

Life is just a journey
Full of twists and bends
But when you rely on family
And the value of your friends
You’ll find that the journey is easier
that the path is not as rough.
Each step you take with others
Helps it not be so hard and tough.

    Stories/Articles I found of interest this Sunday Morning

  Worth 14 million, Elizabeth Warren thinks she’s not a wealthy investor

Drip, Drip, Drip: Yet Another Green Energy Stimulus Recipient Hits the Skids (the third this week!)

Earlier this week, Stimulus beneficiary Evergreen Energy bit the dust. Then, Ener1, a manufacturer of batteries for electric vehicles and recipient of Stimulus largesse, filed for bankruptcy. And today, the Las Vegas Sun reports that Amonix, Inc., a manufacturer of solar panels that received $5.9 million from the Porkulus, will cut two-thirds of its workforce, about 200 employees, only seven months after opening a factory in Nevada.

I foresaw this spate of bad news last November. As I explained yesterday,

In a previous post, I compared renewable energy spending in the 2009 Stimulus to a green albatross burdening the President. I argued that Stimulus spending was inherently wasteful, because politics invariably corrupts government’s investment decisions. The result is taxpayers losses on bankrupt companies that existed only by the grace of political favoritism, a la Solyndra. I predicted the green stimulus would haunt the President, in the form of a slow drip public relations nightmare, as a litany of bad investments go belly-up in the run up to the 2012 elections.

Mr. President, are you still sure you want to “double down” on renewable energy giveaways?

 http://www.globalwarming.org/2012/01/27/drip-drip-drip-yet-another-green-energy-stimulus-recipient-hits-the-skids-the-third-this-week/

Romney vs Obamacare

By Jennifer Rubin

A number of determined anti-Mitt Romney types feign confusion about why he opposes Obamacare and how he will distinguish his own Romneycare plan from the president’s in the general election, should he be the GOP nominee. But in his major health care speech in Michigan last year and in speeches, interview and debates since then, Romney actually has laid out a number of his complaints against Obamacare.

But before we get to those, we should recognize that, while Romneycare’s mandate is a liability for the former Massachusetts governor in the Republican primary, there is no guarantee it’ll even come up in the general election.

For starters, Romney may not have to attack the individual mandate at all, since the Supreme Court may very well strike it down. More importantly, in the general election Romney doesn’t need to challenge President Obama on his individual mandate. It’s not like Obama is going to say, “Your individual mandate is as unpopular as mine.” Instead Romney will focus on the problems with Obamacare and how it differs from his own state plan.

Romney has raised several substantial objections to Obamacare. In Michigan last May (page 11 of his presentation) and since then, he has vigorously argued against the tax burden that would be imposed on businesses and individuals to pay for a plan most Americans don’t want. In op-eds and debates, he has made clear he wants to get rid of the Obamacare taxes and instead work on equalizing the tax treatment of employer-provided and individually purchased health care insurance.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/romney-vs-obamacare/2012/01/27/gIQAem1sVQ_blog.html

The Marco Rubio speech on immigration that everyone is talking about

Rising GOP star Sen. Marco Rubio (FL) gave an impressive speech on immigration Friday to the Hispanic Leadership Network conference, an event led by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

The Miami Herald reports that Sen. Rubio’s “sweeping” immigration speech took swipes at both Republicans and Democrats for playing politics with an issue so crucial to hispanics, calling for a compassionate approach for dealing with the issue of illegal immigration.

The presumptive top pick for running mate to any of the remaining Republican presidential candidates conquered an early challenge during his remarks, addressing a group of protesters at the event who stood and interrupted Sen. Rubio’s speech.

“Let me tell you guys something; these young men and women raise a very legitimate issue,” Sen. Rubio said. “They came here to a crowd that they know might not be kind to their point of view on issues. And they had the bravery and the courage to raise their voices. I thank God I’m in a country where I can do that and I want them to hear what I have to say.”

CBS Miami notes that in his speech, Sen. Rubio spoke of the main problem in immigration being how to balance and honor “our legacy of immigrants“ with ”our legacy as a nation of laws.”

“It’s impossible to walk a block in Miami, in Los Angeles, San Antonio without running into someone who is being deeply impacted by a broken legal immigration system,” Sen. Rubio told the conference.

More: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/the-marco-rubio-speech-on-immigration-that-everyones-talking-about/

The non-endorsing endorsers

ORLANDO — Mike Huckabee insists he’s not endorsing anyone in the GOP primary. So does Marco Rubio. And the same for Jeb Bush.

Yet all three men have, in the last 72 hours, provided critical cover to the man who’s still seen as the likely Republican nominee, Mitt Romney.

On the other side of the race is Sarah Palin, who has said that she, too, is remaining on the sidelines in the Republican 2012 race. But after saying in South Carolina that she would have voted there for Newt Gingrich, there was the former Alaska governor Friday taking to Facebook to pick up Gingrich’s argument that the establishment is out to get him.

Call them the non-endorsing endorsers.

Each has their own motivation for staying officially neutral, but their willingness to put a thumb on the scale — yet not go any further — illustrates an underlying theme of the Republican race. Many party elites fear an electoral meltdown if Gingrich leads the ticket and many anti-establishment Republicans worry Romney will revert to his moderate past if elected. But both wings of the party are uneasy about fully embracing a flawed enemy of their ostensible enemy.

“Politicians have a certain degree of risk-aversion,” said Christian Ferry, a senior John McCain official in 2008, adding: “I guess they don’t feel strongly enough about their supposed choice to risk alienating sections of the party.”

In a sense, these pols want it both ways — to stay in the conversation but not make a difficult decision that could impact their future or standing with a segment of the party.

link: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/72107.html

 

 

Palin accuses GOP “establishment” of Stalin-esque attack on Gingrich

 

link: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/gop-presidential-primary/207201-palin-accuses-gop-establishment-of-stalin-esque-attack-on-gingrich

 

I am seriously rethinking my opinion of Sarah Palin. I still maintian that she was attacked and ridiculed by the obamamedia unfairly, dishonestly and constantly.

 

 However, I am getting sick of her hyperbolic rhetoric. Stalin-esque? Seriously? If she wants to endorse Newt, as Todd Palin has done, do it and quite pussy-footing around about it. Sarah, you are a sad disappointment. Just another damn politician.

 Why Immigration is Fizzling in Florida for Gingrich

It was the same story the next day, when Gingrich addressed a packed ballroom at the conference sponsored by the Hispanic Leadership Network, a Republican group seeking to improve the party’s performance among those voters. The overflow crowd, almost all of it Hispanic, sat in almost indifferent silence as Gingrich derided Romney’s call for massive “self deportation” of illegal immigrants as “a fantasy … not a solution.” Much louder applause erupted from the group a few minutes later, when Romney’s youngest son Craig introduced his father in fluent Spanish — and when Romney promised a hard-line foreign policy against Cuba and Venezuela and pledged to support statehood for Puerto Rico if residents there endorse it in a referendum.

Florida was supposed to provide Gingrich’s first electoral reward for embracing a more flexible and lenient approach to illegal immigration than his rivals — positions, as he pointedly noted to the Hispanic group, that the other candidates have persistently attacked as “amnesty.” 

Yet the muted reaction at the Hispanic conference captures a surprising trend: There are no signs in Florida that Gingrich’s immigration position is benefiting him among local Hispanics, who cast 12 percent of the votes in the 2008 GOP presidential primary. In a Univision/ABC/Latino Decisions survey released last week, Romney led Gingrich by nearly two-to-one among Hispanics likely to vote in next Tuesday’s GOP primary.

 More: http://decoded.nationaljournal.com/2012/01/miamiwhen-newt-gingrich-pounde.php

 How Gingrich’s Earmark Regime Led To Cunningham Corruption

What’s Going On In The World?

 Acute Anti-Americanism Is Now Official Policy in Moscow

As the new American ambassador – Michael McFaul – arrived in Moscow, the policy of improving Russo-US relations, known as “reset,” began to unravel. McFaul, as director for Russia and Eurasia on the US National Security Council, was considered the designer of the reset policy.

It is a terrible irony the Russian authorities used his arrival as a pretext to launch a massive anti-American PR assault. This week, speaking in parliament (the Duma), the flamboyant leader of the populist and nationalist Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) Vladimir Zhirinovsky condemned deputies from the Just Russia (JR) fraction Ilia Ponomarev and Oksana Dmitryeva and Communist Leonid Kalashnikov, who together with the organizers of pro-democracy rallies attended a meeting at the US embassy with McFaul and Deputy Secretary of State William Burns on January 17.

“What are deputies doing in an embassy of a nation that is plotting a war against Russia when a presidential election campaign is in full swing? They are traitors,” roared Zhirinovsky from the Duma podium and demanded the guilty must be kicked out of the Duma or be permanently denied the right to address the house till December 2016 by the Duma ethics committee.

link: http://www.jamestown.org/programs/edm/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=38932&cHash=93c79910bc5f26bb0f83086ded3bb500

Image of the day from the animal kingdom:

Small cat, very large tongue.

 Sorry, Newt. Only the debt ceiling will reach the moon

Had I been asked to deliver the State of the Union address, it would not have delayed your dinner plans:

“The State of our Union is broke, heading for bankrupt, and total collapse shortly thereafter. Thank you and goodnight! You’ve been a terrific crowd!”

I gather that Americans prefer something a little more upbeat, so one would not begrudge a speechwriter fluffing it up by holding out at least the possibility of some change of fortune, however remote. Instead, President Obama assured us at great length that nothing is going to change, not now, not never. Indeed the Union’s state – its unprecedented world-record brokeness – was not even mentioned.

If, as I was, you happened to be stuck at Gate 27 at one of the many U.S. airports laboring under the misapprehension that pumping CNN at you all evening long somehow adds to the gaiety of flight delays, you would have watched an address that gave no indication its speaker was even aware that the parlous state of our finances is an existential threat not only to the nation but to global stability. The message was, oh, sure, unemployment’s still a little higher than it should be, and student loans are kind of expensive, and the housing market’s pretty flat, but it’s nothing that a little government “investment” in green jobs and rural broadband and retraining programs can’t fix. In other words, more of the unaffordable same.

Newt, meanwhile, has committed himself to a lunar colony by the end of his second term, and, while pandering to an audience on Florida’s “Space Coast,” he added that, as soon as there were 13,000 American settlers on the moon, they could apply for statehood. Ah, the old frontier spirit: I hear Laura Ingalls Wilder is already working on “Little House In The Crater.”

Maybe Newt’s on to something. Except for the statehood part. One day, when America gets the old foreclosure notice in the mail, wouldn’t it be nice to close up the entire joint, put the keys in an envelope, slide it under the door of the First National Bank of Shanghai, and jet off on Newt’s Starship Government-Sponsored Enterprise?

There are times for dreaming big dreams, and there are times to wake up. This country will not be going to the moon, any more than will be the British or French. Because, in decline, the horizons shrivel. The only thing that’s going to be on the moon is the debt ceiling. Before we can make any more giant leaps for mankind, we have to make one small, dull, prosaic, earthbound step here at home – and stop. Stop the massive expansion of microregulatory government, and then reverse it. Obama has vowed to press on. If Romney and Gingrich can’t get serious about it, he’ll get his way.

   Quote For A Sunday Morning:

   “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” ~ C.S. Lewis

Saturdays

Have a great day!

  My Pick Of The Litter Today

Newt wipes out

 By Jennifer Rubin

 Newt Gingrich got slammed in the debate by a remarkably invigorated Mitt Romney, an impressive Rick Santorum and CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, who really wouldn’t let him get away with much.

 Romney was clearly on his game, ready to swat down Gingrich. He vigorously defended his success in business and skewered Gingrich on his carping about his capital gains. He tied Gingrich to Freddie Mac and wouldn’t let go, making it clear that Gingrich was a cheerleader for the entity that contributed mightily to the financial crisis.

 When Gingrich accused him of investing in Freddie, Romney pointed out that they both had investments in mutual funds which held Freddie bonds.

 On Gingrich’s loony moon colony, he was restrained but emphatic that this was fiscally irreponsible. He gave a very succinct and smart answer on the need to equalize the tax treatment for individually-purchased and employer-provided health care insurance.

 When it came to talking about his wife he lovingly explained his wife Ann’s fight against MS and cancer. This was a better, sharper, more aggressive candidate than we have seen to date. He very likely sealed a victory for himself in Florida, where he is already leading.

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/newt-wipes-out/2012/01/26/gIQAbfMJUQ_blog.html

     All About The Debate:

 Jacksonville Debate: Two Winners, One Loser 

JACKSONVILLE, FL – We had two winners tonight: From a ‘micro’ perspective, Rick Santorum was terrific and narrowly won the evening.  On a macro level, Mitt Romney came awfully close to winning the debate outright, and just owned Newt Gingrich during three dramatic exchanges.  Because Newt didn’t have a particularly strong showing, the political inertia stays in Romney’s favor heading into Tuesday.  Here’s my instant review of each candidate’s debate performance:
 

Mitt Romney – The former Massachusetts reportedly worked with a new debate coach ahead of tonight’s tilt, and it showed.  He was aggressive, sharp, and focused.  He also repeatedly bested Newt Gingrich in direct confrontations.  Early in the evening, he thumped Newt over his heinous (and subsequently pulled) “anti-immigrant” radio attack ad.  It was a Democrat-style attack, and Romney smartly invoked Marco Rubio’s strong statement denouncing it in jumping down Newt’s throat.  Newt tried to double down, and in a pronounced shift from South Carolina, the crowd turned on him.  Romney finished off the exchange with an effective “eleven million grandmothers” line, mocking a Gingrich trope.  He also prevailed in a second important segment, firmly defending his private sector record, refusing to apologize for his wealth, and scolding Newt for belittling his income as not really earned.  Finally, while on the offensive against Newt (again, much more effective than his previous defensiveness), Romney hit the former Speaker on his lucrative connection to Freddie Mac.  When Newt countered that Romney had invested in Fannie and Freddie, Mitt cooly explained the concept of a blind trust (anyone with a 401K should understand this), and pointedly remarked that Newt had done the exact same thing.  Checkmate.

Other highlights included Romney’s excellent answer on Israel and a very strong closing statement. There were lowlights, too.  Rick Santorum dismantled him on Romneycare with persistence and precision.  Romney lost the exchange and erred in saying that Santorum shouldn’t get “upset” over the issue.  Actually, yes he should.  Yes we should.  We’re talking about people’s lives and health — that’s deeply personal, and it matters.  Did Romney sleep through the healthcare townhall meetings in 2010?  Also, Romney looked silly claiming that he didn’t know about an ad that he approved, and the phrase “my trustee” isn’t exactly going to play with a lot of voters.   As the forum wound down, National Review’s Rich Lowry suggested that Romney clinched the win and probably the primary. 

More: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2012/01/26/jacksonville_debate_two_winners_one_loser

Debate Takeaways: Gingrich Loses Groove, Romney Gains Ground

1.    Newt Gingrich has lost his groove. After dominating two debates in South Carolina, he has misplaced his timing in Florida. All night, he seemed like a power hitter in a slump: he lunged at change-ups and stood frozen at fastballs. Whether he tried confrontation or conciliation, Mitt Romney constantly beat him to the spot. Though Gingrich received more enthusiastic applause from the HLN crowd when he was announced than any other candidate, his attacks on Romney drew little response from the audience (the one exception was when he accused Romney of profiting, through his investments, on Freddie Mac and the housing crisis in general); Romney’s responses, in fact, generally elicited more applause. And when Gingrich tried to take the high road, deriding moderator Wolf Blitzer’s question about Romney’s finances, the former Massachusetts governor still whacked him for failing to repeat on stage criticisms he has made on the stump. It got worse: Under assault from both Romney and Rick Santorum, the lunar space colony that Gingrich has talked about seemed not visionary but fanciful and impractical. Romney had his own share of awkward moments (when he denied knowing about an ad that he provided the voiceover approval for and when he also denied knowing about the investments in his trust). But on almost every direct encounter with Gingrich, Romney came out ahead.

 Last debate before Florida sunk Gingrich

Tonight’s Republican presidential debate on CNN was the last one before the Florida primary as well as the last one for almost a month. That made it critical for New Gingrich, the man whose candidacy has largely depended on success in debates to do well tonight. But instead of another triumph in which he was able to use attacks on the moderators and his rivals, Gingrich came out flat. While there is little doubt that Rick Santorum did the best of any of the candidates tonight and Ron Paul had a few good jokes, the real winner was Mitt Romney who attacked Gingrich relentlessly and with good effect.

Gingrich’s poor performance not only undermines his argument that he would trounce Barack Obama in debates but also squandered what might be his last chance to turn the momentum of the race around. Gingrich’s usual trick of turning on the moderator flopped. So did his attacks on Romney. Along with Gingrich, Romney took a pounding from Santorum but even that worked to his benefit. Any votes Santorum gains in Florida will be at Gingrich’s expense. The Jacksonville debate may have sealed Gingrich’s fate in Florida and perhaps the entire race.

 Romney came out strong taking Gingrich to task for his attacks on him and then followed up by taking the former speaker to task on his connection with Freddie Mac. Gingrich then attempted to deflect a Wolf Blitzer question about his attacks on Romney’s finances back on the moderator. But, unfortunately for Gingrich, Blitzer would have none of it. The result was that he was made to look foolish while Romney took him further to task. That was a pattern that repeated itself throughout the evening as Gingrich missed opportunities to make points at his rival’s expense and never was able to seize a moment and get the boisterous crowd behind him. Instead it was Romney who got more applause for his aggressive focus on Gingrich’s weak points including his latest “grandiose” idea: a moon colony plan that he denounced as a blatant pander.

More: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/01/26/last-debate-before-florida-sunk-gingrich/

    Stories/Articles You Might Find Interesting – or not

Unhinged lefties heckle Governor Walker during Stat of the State speech

There’s so much good news to report out of Wisconsin, I don’t know where to begin.  I suppose this is as good a place as any:
 

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is ahead in his likely recall election even as his campaign raises — and spends — millions of dollars in expectation of a tough race later this year.  According to a new Marquette Law School poll the governor leads Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, a likely candidate, 50 percent to 44 percent. He leads former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, the only declared Democratic candidate, 49 percent to 42 percent margin, former Rep. David Obey 49 percent to 43 percent and state Sen. Tim Cullen 50 percent to 40 percent. Democrats started targeting Walker last year, when he spearheaded controversial legislation limiting collective bargaining for public employees. Under Wisconsin law, Walker was not eligible for a recall election until January of this year.

By all means, lefties, please pour more cash into this race.  The Washington Post story quoted above focuses heavily on Walker’s fundraising and political spending in anticipation of the recall election, yet ignores the massive money game on the other side.  For instance, Democrats outspent Republicans by nearly $3 million in their failed attempt to re-take the Senate via recall elections last year, and the Left is re-filling its coffers to take out their prized bete noir in 2012.  Even so, Wisconsin Democrats and their media allies are outraged — outraged! — that Walker has raised a pile of cash, some of it from (gasp) out of state, to beat back the sore-loser recall movement.  Badger State taxpayers should be reminded that much of the money being used to attack their chief ally in Madison flows from government sector unions, which is to say, from them.  This is the game government unions play.  Their members’ paychecks are extracted from public funds, and a portion of each paycheck (prior to Walker’s reforms) went directly into the unions’ pockets.  This was mandatory and automatic.  Those unions, in turn, donated generously to Democrats to protect their interests.  Democrats, in turn, steadfastly opposed any Republican effort to break the vicious cycle — even going so far as to flee the state to block votes.  This nasty little anti-taxpayer racket carried on until Wisconsin Republicans displayed the political will and fortitude to break it up — even in the face of menacing hoards and death threats. 

As we’ve described before, Walker’s reforms are working.  Christian Schneider of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute documents the success:
 

The unions’ battle against Walker’s reforms has rested on the argument that the changes would damage public services beyond repair. The truth, however, is that the reforms not only are saving money already; they’re doing so with little disruption to services. In early August, noticing the trend, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported that Milwaukee would save more in health-care and pension costs than it would lose in state aid, leaving the city $11 million ahead in 2012—despite Mayor Tom Barrett’s prediction in March that Walker’s budget “makes our structural deficit explode.”

The collective-bargaining component of Walker’s plan has yielded especially large financial dividends for school districts. Before the reform, many districts’ annual union contracts required them to buy health insurance from WEA Trust, a nonprofit affiliated with the state’s largest teachers’ union. Once the reform limited collective bargaining to wage negotiations, districts could eliminate that requirement from their contracts and start bidding for health care on the open market. When the Appleton School District put its health-insurance contract up for bid, for instance, WEA Trust suddenly lowered its rates and promised to match any competitor’s price. Appleton will save $3 million during the current school year.

At the outset of the public-union standoff, educators had made dire predictions that Walker’s reforms would force schools to fire teachers. In February, to take one example, Madison School District Superintendent Dan Nerad predicted that 289 teachers in his district would be laid off. Walker insisted that his reforms were actually a job-retention program: by accepting small concessions in health and pension benefits, he argued, school districts would be able to spare hundreds of teachers’ jobs. The argument proved sound. So far, Nerad’s district has laid off no teachers at all, a pattern that has held in many of the state’s other large school districts. No teachers were laid off in Beloit and LaCrosse; Eau Claire saw a reduction of two teachers, while Racine and Wausau each laid off one. The Wauwatosa School District, which faced a $6.5 million shortfall, anticipated slashing 100 jobs—yet the new pension and health contributions saved them all. The benefits to school districts aren’t just fiscal, moreover. Thanks to Walker’s collective-bargaining reforms, the Brown Deer school district in suburban Milwaukee can implement a performance-pay system for its best teachers—a step that could improve educational outcomes.

More: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2012/01/26/video_unhinged_lefties_heckle_scott_walker_during_major_speech__plus_walker_leads_in_possible_recall_contest

More Obama allies funding anti-Romney ads to help Gingrich in Florida

Something To Think About

Why is it that no one appreciates the value of constructive criticism more thoroughly than the one who’s giving it?

President Opts For Small-Ball Demagoguery

by Charles Krauthammer

Once upon a time, small ball was not Barack Obama’s game. Tuesday, it was the essence of his State of the Union address. The visionary of 2008 — purveyor of hope and change, healer of the earth, tamer of the rising seas — offered an hour of little things:

• Tax-code tweaks to encourage this or that kind of behavior (manufacturing being the flavor of the day).

• Little watchdog agencies to round up Wall Street miscreants and Chinese DVD pirates.

• Even a presidential demand “that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18.” Under penalty of what? Jail? The self-proclaimed transformer of America is now playing truant officer?

It sounded like the Clinton years with their presidentially proclaimed initiatives on midnight basketball and school uniforms. These are the marks of a shrunken presidency, thoroughly flummoxed by high unemployment, economic stagnation, crushing debt — and a glaring absence of ideas.

More: http://news.investors.com/Article/599062/201201261809/obama-small-ball-visionary-solyndra-buffett.htm

 Adding Up To Nothing

O’s fast talk on the economy

by Charlie Gasparino

More: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/adding_up_to_nothing_8K1eBN3afYXNELupfK8tRL

 Senators Shy From Obama Filibuster Reform

President Barack Obama’s call for a sweeping overhaul of Congressional ethics and procedure has little chance of becoming reality in an institution adverse to change and built to benefit from its rules.

In his State of the Union address, the one-time Senator proposed that the Senate approve a version of the “nuclear option,” which would end filibusters of presidential nominations. Obama said nominees should get an up-or-down vote after 90 days, regardless of whether they could garner the 60 votes needed to overcome a procedural blockade.

“A simple majority is no longer enough to get anything — even routine business — passed through the Senate,” Obama said. “Neither party has been blameless in these tactics. Now both parties should put an end to it.”

The call to end the filibuster is not new, and executing the change remains improbable.

“It seems so obvious and clear until you get into it, then you find that getting the necessary votes together [to change the rules] and holding them through this process is more difficult,” said Senate
Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), before noting his understanding of why Obama would want to pursue it.

“You turn on C-SPAN for classical music because you’re not getting business out of the Senate,” Durbin added. “Three days or four days at a time on every nomination? Come on, I mean the reality is that doesn’t work for any president.”

But the Illinois Democrat did not fully endorse the 90-day limit as the right solution. He said it was unlikely that Senate Democrats would bring nominees to the floor and force a days-long filibuster standoff with Republicans.

Even Obama himself was opposed to making such a drastic move when he was a Senator in 2005, when then-Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) contemplated forcing a rules change.

More: http://www.rollcall.com/issues/57_85/Senators-Shy-From-Obama-Filibuster-Reform-211822-1.html?pos=hbtxt

Image of the day from the animal kingdom:

Maybe I should just let “this” bird alone.

  What’s Going On In The World?

Fear may save the euro, but not necessarily Europe

Link: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/fear-may-save-the-euro-but-not-necessarily-europe/article2315053/

Quote For Today:

 
  The cruelest lies are often told in silence.  ~Adlai Stevenson

  My Pick Of The Litter Today

Marco Rubio gets off the bench

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) stepped into the fight for the Republican primary vote in Florida on Wednesday, lending his star power to help Mitt Romney beat back an attack on his immigration stance.  

Rubio, who has pledged neutrality in the race and is considered the odds-on favorite to be the GOP’s vice presidential nominee, chastised Newt Gingrich’s campaign for airing a Spanish-language radio ad that labeled Romney “the most anti-immigration candidate.”

“This kind of language is more than just unfortunate. It’s inaccurate, inflammatory and doesn’t belong in this campaign,” Rubio said.

Gingrich’s campaign quickly withdrew the ad, a testament to the junior senator’s pull with Republicans in the state and across the country.

link: http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/206659-marco-rubio-gets-off-bench-supports-romney-president

    Stories/Articles You Might Find Interesting – or not

Rubio rebuffs Gingrich

Newt Gingrich is as clueless as he is presumptuous. Yesterday, he trekked around Florida comparing himself to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Mitt Romney to the party-switching milquetoast Charlie Crist. Rubio was having none of it and in a rare moment decide to intervene in the GOP presidential race. He put out a statement: “Mitt Romney is no Charlie Crist. Romney is a conservative. And he was one of the first national Republican leaders to endorse me. He came to Florida, campaigned hard for me, and made a real difference in my race.” Boom.

Rubio’s nod certainly is welcomed by the Romney camp. Rubio continues to distinguish himself not only in the Senate but also in the party at large. His video response to the president’s State of the Union address confirms that, like Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), he has become a prominent antagonist of the president.

Gingrich’s misstep — in essence, forcing Rubio to comment on the race, in which he pledged neutrality — is not unlike Gingrich’s suck-uppery regarding former U.N. ambassador John Bolton. Gingrich declared Bolton to be his choice for secretary of state; Bolton shortly thereafter robustly endorsed Romney, citing his “executive temperament.” Gingrich apparently overestimates his appeal among named conservatives.

A prudent, well-organized candidate would reach out to figures in advance of his statements to make sure he’s not going to get embarrassed. But Gingrich is neither prudent nor well organized. Moreover, he believes his own spin and assumes others share his distorted view of himself and reality.

link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/rubio-rebuffs-gingrich-romney-is-no-charlie-crist/2012/01/25/gIQAn3b2PQ_blog.html

 The Marvelous Meekness of Merely Mitt

Link:  http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/the_marvelous_meekness_of_merely_mitt.html

Gingrichonomics added up equals nothing but budgetary dysfunction

Newt Gingrich, unexpectedly, has become a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. He won the South Carolina primary and is now the front-runner in some polls nationally. He has been debating well, shaking off criticism of his personal life and doing his best to bolster his reputation as an ideas man.

Regrettably, on economics, where the country could use some fresh thinking, his ideas are a mixture of the alarming, the implausible and the banal.

On monetary policy, the former House speaker has called for a more transparent Federal Reserve, which we applaud. But he has also spoken ominously about creating a presidential “Gold Commission” that would “look at the whole concept of how do we get back to hard money.” And he insists that Representative Ron Paul, the author of “End the Fed” and a rival for the nomination, “has been right for 25 years” when it comes to central banking, something that would surprise most economists.

link: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-26/gingrichonomics-added-up-equals-nothing-but-budgetary-dysfunction-view.html

Geithner doesn’t expect Obama to ask him to stay if he wins election

More: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-25/geithner-doesn-t-expect-obama-to-ask-him-to-stay-if-he-wins-re-election.html

Evidently Geithner aka Turbo Tax Timmy, is aware that his exiting would be a plus for Obama. Must suck to be him.

Gingrich lost his crowd pleasing groove in Tampa

It didn’t take long for his frustration to surface. During one memorable exchange with Romney over the details of his consulting work in Washington, a noticeably flustered Gingrich stood shaking his head while Romney denounced the former speaker’s alleged conflicts of interest. When it came time for Gingrich’s rebuttal, he responded with moments of silence that seemed an eternity, searching for the caustic comeback that would not come.

More: http://decoded.nationaljournal.com/2012/01/gingrich-lost-his-crowdpleasin.php

Something To Think About

Why do we pay extra attention to what actors say when all they do is pretend for a living?

Obama’s lofty speeches

By Peter Wehner

It’s stiff competition, but arguably Barack Obama’s chief courtier in the press is Jonathan Alter. Consider this analysis from a recent op-ed he wrote on five myths about Obama:

3. Obama is an effective public speaker.

Obama’s lofty speeches during the 2008 campaign led even his detractors to admit that he is a gifted orator. Some critics try to minimize his skill by saying he relies on a teleprompter–a ridiculous charge considering that he often writes big chunks of his speeches and often speaks off-the-cuff.

That said, there are few examples of Obama’s speeches actually moving popular opinion. That’s because he speaks in impressive paragraphs, not memorable sentences. He is allergic to sound bites, and that keeps him from effectively framing his goals and achievements.

The roots of this allergy may lie in his famous Philadelphia speech on race in 2008, which followed the revelations of incendiary comments by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The speech lacked memorable lines, but it was a big hit. I believe it convinced Obama that the public could absorb complex ideas without bumper sticker lines. He was wrong.

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal, whose daily take on events is very nearly indispensable, summarizes Alter’s argument this way: “So it turns out Obama is an ineffective public speaker because the public lacks the intellectual acumen to appreciate the brilliance of Obama’s speeches.”

All of this got me thinking about some other bumper-sticker lines in American history we could have done without. For example:

• “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
• “With malice toward none, with charity for all.”
• “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
• “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
• “I have a dream.”
• “Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall.”

The mistake Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, King, and Reagan made is in failing to understand that the public could absorb complex ideas without these bumper-sticker lines. (These sound bite artists unfortunately succumbed to the temptation to use memorable sentences to mask their shallow arguments and unimpressive paragraphs.) Obama, on the other hand, employed sophisticated and complicated phrases to articulate his public philosophy – phrases like “yes we can” and “hope and change.” Against such eloquence, Abraham Lincoln never stood a chance.

 http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/01/25/obama-lofty-speeches/#more-781951

Gingrich rise is triumph of style over substance

On the eve of Newt Gingrich’s landslide victory in the South Carolina primary, CNN’s Erin Burnett let the former speaker expound on the success of his “kick the moderator” debate strategy.

“I think there’s something going on here that’s very deep,” Gingrich said. “People want a leader who’s forceful. … Part of it is, you know, if I’d said ‘The color is blue!’ — it’s the forcefulness. … That delivery, that clearness is as important as the specific topic,” he explained.

Watching the interview, I had a disturbing thought: Has Newt Gingrich become self-aware?

I’ve never heard a better explanation for the former speaker’s ability to cloud conservatives’ minds. How, after all, did a man who’s the very model of a Beltway-consensus influence-peddler convince Tea Party voters he represents “real change”? It’s the “forcefulness,” stupid!

Unfortunately, what’s going on here is not “very deep.” Gingrich’s rise represents the triumph of rhetorical style over substance. In a way, it’s the ultimate tribute to Barack Obama.

The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein asked a good question on Sunday: “What are Newt Gingrich’s big ideas?” “I’m at a loss to name even one,” he admitted.

Gingrich has an enviable rep as a one-man think tank, but in his wilderness years, he made a sweet living as a “forceful” pitchman for utterly conventional center-left policies: Medicaid expansion, the individual mandate, cap and trade, “clean energy” subsidies, and the like. Newt does a great impression of a red-state firebrand, but when it comes to policy, “the color is blue.”

That’s not to say that Gingrich has never had an unconventional idea. This is a guy who bragged in a 2005 GQ interview that “I first talked about [saving civilization] in August of 1958″—when he was a rising sophomore in high school.

Some of Gingrich’s big ideas are charmingly batty. Given his worries about global warming, Newt has probably abandoned his 1984 plan for “a mirror system in space” that “could affect the earth’s climate by increasing the amount of sunlight.”

But the Trekkie zeal remains, judging by one of my favorite recent headlines: “Gingrich Said Freddie Mac Could Be Good Model for Mars Travel” (Bloomberg, Dec. 2, 2011).

Some of Gingrich’s other fancies are less charming. The candidate who’s warned of a “gay and secular fascism” sweeping the country has an impressive authoritarian streak of his own.

As Klein notes, in 1996, Gingrich had the “big idea” of instituting the death penalty for anyone who brought more than 2 ounces of marijuana into the United States.

Today, Gingrich condemns the Stop Online Piracy Act as censorship, but in 2006 he supported empowering “federal judges who’ve served in combat” to shut down “jihadist” websites.

This December, he advocated sending U.S. marshals to arrest activist judges who rule against religious displays in public schools (maybe combat-hardened jurists will get a pass).

more: http://reason.com/archives/2012/01/24/gingrich-rise-is-triumph-of-style-over-s

Obama and Governor Brewer spar over her book

When President Obama landed in Phoenix on Wednesday, he was greeted with sunny skies and a kerfuffle with Republican Gov. Jan Brewer.

After welcoming the president upon his arrival, Obama told Brewer he didn’t like the way he was characterized in her book, ‘Scorpions for Breakfast,’ the governor told reporters traveling with the president.

At one point in the tense conversation on Wednesday, Brewer pointed her finger at Obama and at another time, they were talking over one another, according to a White House pool report.

Obama appeared to walk away from Brewer in the middle of their conversation, according to the pool report.

“I said I was sorry he felt that way but I didn’t get my sentence finished,” she said. “Anyway, we’re glad he’s here. I’ll regroup.

 link: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/206641-on-visit-to-arizona-obama-and-gov-brewer-spar-over-her-book

Obama walked away while the Governor was still speaking? How rude. Not to mention that his majesty Obama was guilty of not showing “Noblesse oblige“.

2012 Florida Republican Primary

Mitt Romney has jumped back ahead in the fevered Florida Republican Primary race with his support back to where it was before Newt Gingrich’s big win Saturday in South Carolina.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Florida Republican Primary Voters, taken Wednesday night, shows Romney with 39% support to Gingrich’s 31%. Former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum earns 12%, and Texas Congressman Ron Paul runs last with nine percent (9%). Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate, and seven percent (7%) are undecided.

Link: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2012/election_2012_presidential_election/florida/2012_florida_republican_primary

U.S. Financial worries rival 1992

Worry about job loss up to 34%

link: http://www.gallup.com/poll/152180/Financial-Worries-Rival-1992.aspx

Image of the day from the animal kingdom:

Find the “real” Corgis.

 The State Of The Union Is Angry

Obama has long had very poor approval ratings among independent voters, which ought to make him easy to defeat. Obama’s angry appeal is not going to win over unhappy independents. The great imponderable is whether Gingrich’s anger would put them off and thereby neutralize Obama’s–or, to put it another way, whether independent voters are fed up enough with Obama to respond to Gingrich’s angry appeal the way Republicans do.

link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203718504577183131189889516.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_BelowLEFTSecond

 What’s Going On In The World?

Iran set to turn off oil supply to Europe

The European Union embargo on Iranian oil will only come into effect in six months, but the leadership in Tehran wants to act first: Exports to Europe are set to be halted immediately. It is a move which could mean added difficulties for struggling economies in southern Europe.

It’s a move which has tit-for-tat written all over it, but one which could nonetheless have a serious impact: The Iranian government wants to present a bill to parliament this weekend calling for an immediate halt to oil deliveries to Europe. The move, with most reports citing the Iranian news agency Mehr, has come about in response to the EU agreement to impose sanctions against Iran, which were announced earlier this week.

 The sanctions banned any new contracts for buying oil from Iran, but allowed existing deals to continue until July in order to give countries time to find other sources. But that process is now at risk after the latest move from Tehran, a step the Iranian government had already threatened.

“If this bill is passed, the government will be forced to stop selling oil to Europe before the actual implementation of their sanctions,” said Emad Hosseini, spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s energy commission, reportedly said. The bill is set to become law on Sunday.

The EU sanctions allow for oil deliveries from Iran until July 1. Any pre-empting of this timescale by Tehran could prove problematic for countries like Italy, Greece and Spain, who would need to urgently find new suppliers.

China, meanwhile, a major importer of Iranian oil, has also criticized the EU sanctions. The Xinhua news agency quoted the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Thursday as saying: “To blindly pressure and impose sanctions on Iran are not constructive approaches.”

Link: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,811507,00.html

Quote For Today:

   Why don’t they pass a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as Prohibition did, in five years we will have the smartest people on earth. ~ Will Rogers

  My Pick Of The Litter Today

Diminished Obama State of the Union strikes a tepid tone

President Obama launched his re-election campaign tonight with a State of the Union speech that attempted to conjure of the spirit of an earlier era of national unity even as he sought to focus national resentment on wealthy Americans and his political opponents in Congress.

With no record of accomplishment to his credit, other than the unpopular Obamacare and stimulus, Obama put forward a limited agenda of government intervention in the economy and the tax code in a laundry list of initiatives that did little to break new ground on any issue and was bereft of the passion and vision that drove his 2008 campaign for the presidency. All in all it was 65 minutes that ought to worry Democrats more than it annoyed Republicans.

The president knows he will get nothing passed this year and his speech reflected that reality. He began and ended with the killing of Osama bin Laden. In between he spoke of a peace dividend from the end of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that he would use on building projects and green energy production. He called for a massive bailout of homeowners even as he pandered to public opinion by saying there would be no more bailouts for banks. He vowed to prosecute those responsible for the mortgage crisis and said that teenagers would no longer be allowed to drop out of high school, no matter how much trouble they were causing. No mention was made of either Obamacare or the stimulus. Nor did he speak of the Keystone XL pipeline project that he cancelled. He called for lower taxes; less regulation and more exploitation of our natural resources even though he has raised taxes, increased regulation and made it more difficult for the nation to use more of its oil and gas and that of our neighbor Canada.

On foreign affairs, Obama spoke of victory in Iraq and Afghanistan and pretended that he had increased Iran’s isolation rather than wasting three years on failed engagement and feckless diplomacy that gave the Islamist regime more time to build a nuclear weapon. He claimed to be Israel’s greatest friend even though he has used his time in office to pick constant fights with the government of the Jewish state. The shout out to wavering liberal Jewish Democrats betrayed an administration that was clearly worried about November.

The only substantive portion of the speech dealt with his desire to raise taxes on millionaires. Even if he got his way and raised the rates for millionaires to 30 percent it would do little to deal with the deficit or pay for the runaway costs of entitlements. But that isn’t really the point of his advocacy. Obama isn’t interested in raising those taxes to achieve an economic purpose. He has seized on this phony issue in order to exploit it politically this fall. For all of his talk about unity, his decision to let loose the dogs of class warfare rhetoric doesn’t so much seek division as to treat it as his golden ticket to re-election.

More: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/01/24/diminished-obama-state-of-the-union-tepid-tone/

All About The State of the Union Speech

A Mediocre Stump Speech

President Obama delivered his third, and hopefully final, State of the Union Address tonight in the House of Representatives.  It was a laundry list of minor programs and legislative tweaks, with plenty of conspicuous campaign rhetoric mixed in.  The president strained to sound peppy and upbeat, painting a rosy national picture that the 16 percent of Americans who are unemployed, underemployed, or have ceased even looking for a job likely found unrecognizable.  On the areas that still require improvement (namely, everything), he urged Congress to work together to pass — surprise — his agenda.  Unity, interestingly, was a major theme throughout the address.  He called on Washington to lower the “temperature” of its discourse — just a few months after the man over his right shoulder explicitly said that Republicans were aiding and abetting “rape and murder” by opposing an unpaid-for second stimulus, and weeks after his hand-picked DNC Chair suggested that Tea Party rhetoric contributed to the Tucson shooting. 

More: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2012/01/25/a_mediocre_stump_speech

The Eternal State of the Union

Why does every State of the Union Speech sound eerily familiar? Because president have been say the same things for a half-century.

Link: http://reason.com/archives/2012/01/24/the-eternal-state-of-the-union

Lawmakers politely take a beating during combative Obama SOTU

The combative and direct tone of Obama’s speech kept members of Congress, particularly Republicans, in their chairs for stretches at a time, but it provoked no outbursts and no “You lie” moments.

Lawmakers leapt to their feet when Obama praised American soldiers and lauded the nation’s spirit and resilience. Yet when the president told Congress that most Americans expected “nothing will get done this year,” there were only knowing chuckles. And when Obama called the debt ceiling debate that roiled Washington last summer a “fiasco,” he was greeted with stony silence.

Democrats lapped up most of Obama’s policy proposals, which Republicans greeted with chagrin.

“It was a very divided speech, trying to divide the country instead of unite the country,” the third-ranking House Republican, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), told The Hill afterward.

link: http://thehill.com/homenews/house/206369-lawmakers-politely-take-a-beating-during-combative-obama-state-of-the-union

    Stories/Articles You Might Find Interesting – or not

States weaken tenure rights for teachers

The changes are occurring as states replace virtually automatic “satisfactory” teacher evaluations with those linked to teacher performance and base teacher layoffs on performance instead of seniority. Politically powerful teachers’ unions are fighting back, arguing the changes lower morale, deny teachers due process, and unfairly target older teachers.

The debate is so intense that in Idaho, for example, state superintendent Tom Luna’s truck was spray painted and its tires slashed. An opponent appeared at his mother’s house and he was interrupted during a live TV interview by an agitated man. Why? The Idaho legislature last year ended “continuing contracts” — essentially equivalent to tenure — for new teachers and said performance, not seniority, would determine layoffs. Other changes include up to $8,000 in annual bonuses given to teachers for good performance, and parent input on evaluations. Opponents gathered enough signatures to put a referendum that would overturn the changes on the November ballot.

Luna says good teachers shouldn’t be worried.

“We had a system where it was almost impossible to financially reward great teachers and very difficult to deal with ineffective teachers. If you want an education system that truly puts students first, you have to have both,” Luna said.

More: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-01-25/teacher-tenure-rights-firings/52772354/1?csp=YahooModule_News

  Latest Freddie Mac Contract Describes Gingrich As a Hired Gun 

Newt Gingrich insists that he was not a lobbyist for Freddie Macand a second contract released Tuesday night spells out that fact. But it also makes clear that Gingrich was a hired gun brought in to discuss “business and public policy issues” with “major stakeholders” (read: lawmakers and regulators.)

More: http://influencealley.nationaljournal.com/2012/01/2nd-gingrich-freddie-mac-contr.php

 Details Unfold About Gingrich’s Freddie Mac Role

New details are trickling out about Newt Gingrich’s role at Freddie Mac, and the latest reports continue to contradict his claim that he objected to the mortgage giant’s business model while serving as an advisor.

Last November, Gingrich’s campaign said that “on numerous occasions in meetings with Freddie Mac, Speaker Gingrich advised that a business model that involved lending money to people with bad credit and no money down was unsustainable and a bubble, and that it was dangerous to buy securities made up of these mortgages.”

But according to Politico, his activities weren’t just confined to advising and lobbying on behalf of Freddie Mac. He also rallied an audience of Freddie Mac political action committee donors in 2007:

New details from Newt Gingrich’s $35,000-a-year contract with Freddie Mac show that the Republican hopeful wasn’t just a boardroom consultant, but served as a high-profile booster for the beleaguered organization. He even gave a rallying speech to dozens of the group’s political action committee donors in the spring of 2007.

Shortly after the “rah, rah” speech, as one source described it, Gingrich gave an interview for the Freddie Mac website, where he supported the group’s model at length. The interview is no longer on Freddie’s site.

If Gingich was supposedly the internal critic of Freddie Mac, what was he doing giving speeches to the group’s PAC donors? The story doesn’t add up. Of course it’s possible that Gingrich brought up his concerns at some meetings, but he gave no public indication that he was trying to reform the group at the time. Everything that’s been released has shown the opposite – him praising Freddie Mac’s business model and trying to boost the group’s reputation.

More: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/01/24/details-gingrich-freddie-mac-role/#more-781864

Romney resists hitting the panic button

LEHIGH ACRES, Fla. — His political life may be on the line these days, but you wouldn’t know it from Mitt Romney’s demeanor as he campaigns in Florida.

After a debilitating double-digit loss in South Carolina, Romney has fallen behind Newt Gingrich in both Florida and nationalpolls and is about to come under another withering, multimillion-dollar assault over the airwaves here from the pro-Gingrich Winning Our Future super PAC, which announced a new $6 million Florida media buy on Tuesday.

But instead of dialing up the intensity level or test-driving a new strategy, Romney appears content to stay the course.

While they can be under no illusion over how precarious their position has become, he and his brain trust are retooling their message rather than blowing up the game plan with a week to go before the critical Florida primary.

Stuart Stevens, Romney’s top national strategist, conceded that it had been a dismal week leading up to the South Carolina defeat but suggested that the campaign known for its even-keeled personality would not give up on its analytical approach in order to channel some of Gingrich’s more visceral appeal.

“I think that we got caught up about tax returns, so we’ve got that behind us, and I think we probably didn’t do as good of a job as we should have talking about big issues — we talked too much about process,” Stevens said. “Because people are angry does not mean they are looking for another candidate who is the most angry candidate. That just simply never seems to be the case, or you would have wonderful talk show hosts getting elected president all the time.”

Amid his campaign’s attempt to portray Gingrich as a rabble-rouser more in the vein of Jerry Springer than a statesman harkening Ronald Reagan, Romney has also sharpened his attacks on Gingrich but has not done much to loosen up his own approach.

More: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/01/25/romney_resists_hitting_the_panic_button_112892.html

Liberalism On Life Support

By Walter Russel Mead

Writing about the onset of the Great Depression, John Kenneth Galbraith famously said that the end had come but was not yet in sight. The past was crumbling under their feet, but people could not imagine how the future would play out. Their social imagination had hit a wall.

The same thing is happening today: The core institutions, ideas and expectations that shaped American life for the sixty years after the New Deal don’t work anymore. The gaps between the social system we inhabit and the one we now need are becoming so wide that we can no longer paper over them. But even as the failures of the old system become more inescapable and more damaging, our national discourse remains stuck in a bygone age. The end is here, but we can’t quite take it in.

In the old system, most blue-collar and white-collar workers held stable, lifetime jobs with defined benefit pensions, and a career civil service administered a growing state as living standards for all social classes steadily rose. Gaps between the classes remained fairly consistent in an industrial economy characterized by strong unions in stable, government-brokered arrangements with large corporations—what Galbraith and others referred to as the Iron Triangle. High school graduates were pretty much guaranteed lifetime employment in a job that provided a comfortable lower middle-class lifestyle; college graduates could expect a better paid and equally secure future. An increasing “social dividend”, meanwhile, accrued in various forms: longer vacations, more and cheaper state-supported education, earlier retirement, shorter work weeks, more social and literal mobility, and more diverse forms of affordable entertainment. Call all this, taken together, the blue model.

In the heyday of the blue model, economists and social scientists assumed that from generation to generation Americans would live a life of incremental improvements. The details of life would keep getting better even as the broad outlines of society stayed the same. The advanced industrial democracies, of which the United States was the largest, wealthiest and strongest, had reached the apex of social achievement. It had, in other words, defined and was in the process of perfecting political and social “best practice.” America was what “developed” human society looked like and no more radical changes were in the offing. Amid the hubris that such conceptions encouraged, Professor (later Ambassador) Galbraith was moved to state, in 1952, that “most of the cheap and simple inventions have been made.”¹ If only the United States and its allies could best the Soviet Union and its counter-model, then indeed—as a later writer would put it—History would end in the philosophical sense that only one set of universally acknowledged best practices would be left standing.

Life isn’t this simple anymore. The blue social model is in the process of breaking down, and the chief question in American politics today is what should come next.

One large group, mainly “blue state” self-labeled liberals who think the blue model is the only possible, or at least the best feasible, way to organize a modern society, wants to shore it up and defend it. This group sees the gradual breakup of the blue social model as an avoidable historical tragedy caused by specific and reversible policy errors. Supporters of the model point to the rising inequality and financial instability in contemporary American life as signs that we need to defend the blue system and enlarge it.

Others, generally called conservatives and often hailing from the “red states”, think the model, whatever its past benefits or general desirability, is no longer sustainable and must give way to an earlier, more austere but also more economically efficient pre-“big government” model. Often, backers of this view see the New Deal state as a great wrong turn. Their goal is to repair the errors of the 1930s and return to the more restrictive constitutional limits on Federal power from an earlier time.

But even as the red-blue division grows more entrenched and bitter, it is becoming less relevant. The blue model is breaking down so fast and so far that not even its supporters can ignore the disintegration and disaster it now presages. Liberal Democrats in states like Rhode Island and cities like Chicago are cutting pensions and benefits and laying off workers out of financial necessity rather than ideological zeal. The blue model can no longer pay its bills, and not even its friends can keep it alive.

Link: http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=1183

Something To Think About

 Is the reason that there is a lot of knowledge in universities because the freshmen bring a little in and the seniors don’t take much away so knowledge just sort of accumulates?

 White House to miss budget deadline for third year

The White House told Congress on Monday that its budget will be late this year, meaning President Obama once again will miss the deadline set in law.

Congressional officials said the president now will send up his budget on Feb. 13, which is a week later than the usual date. The law requires the budget be sent by the first Monday in February.

Late budgets are common in the first year of a presidency, but this move, in Mr. Obama’s fourth year, drew fire from Congress. Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, called it an “abdication of leadership.” Mr. Obama missed the mark in 2009 and 2011, though he was on time with his 2010 budget.

Link: http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2012/jan/23/white-house-miss-budget-deadline-third-year/

What use is a “deadline” set in law if it is routinely ignored?

U.S. auto dealerships turning away the Chevy Volt

According to numerous auto trade reports, a number of U.S. car dealerships are turning away the Chevy Volt. Despite the fact that General Motor’s Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson who will testify to Congress on Wednesday and tell lawmakers that the Volt is a safe plug-in hybrid vehicle, there is little confidence his testimony will do much in terms of a bottom line for the Volt at local dealerships across America.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigated the Volt back in June when fires erupted in three of it’s cars during safety testing. 

Automotive News reports that in the New York City market, “GM allocated 104 Volts to 14 dealerships in the area.” :  

“Dealers took just 31 of them, the lowest take rate for any Chevy model in that market last month. That group of dealers ordered more than 90 percent of the other vehicles they were eligible to take, the source said.”

 link: http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/jan/24/picket-us-auto-dealerships-turning-away-chevy-volt/

Newt’s Victory is the Tea Party’s loss

Hundreds of Capital Hill Staffers didn’t pay taxes in 2010

As Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich parse the details of their individual tax returns, hundreds of Capitol Hill employees are taking taxpayer dollars to the bank without paying their share.

Internal Revenue Service data show that 3 percent of Senate staffers and more than 4 percent of House staffers owed taxes in 2010, adding up to about $10.6 million in unpaid taxes. More than 98,000 civilian federal employees were delinquent on their taxes in 2010, adding up to more than $1 billion in taxes owed, according to the IRS.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, last year introduced a bill to require federal employees to be fired if they are “seriously delinquent” on their taxes. Seriously delinquent is defined as outstanding federal tax debt for which a public lien has been filed. The bill was passed by committee in June but is still waiting for a vote from the full House.

“If you work for the federal government and you don’t pay your taxes, you should be fired,” Chaffetz said in a statement provided to FoxNews.com. “It is totally unacceptable to live on the federal payroll and not pay your taxes. The Obama administration has totally ignored this cheating. Congress should pass my bill and hold federal workers accountable.”

Under current law, only IRS employees can be fired for not paying their federal income taxes, according to Chaffetz’s office.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., in 2010 introduced a similar bill, to make delinquent taxpayers ineligible for federal employment.

“Legislators and government employees should not be exempt from the laws they write and enforce,” Coburn said when introducing the bill. “The very nature of federal employment and the concept inherent to ‘public service’ demands those being paid by taxpayers contribute their fair share of taxes. They should lead by example.”

link: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/…./#ixzz1kOzmj48R

Buffet’s Burlington Northern among winners in Obama rejection of pipeline

link: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-23/buffett-s-burlington-northern-among-winners-in-obama-rejection-of-pipeline.html

Gingrich’ Social Security hooey

link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/gingrich-social-security-hooey/2012/01/24/gIQAYaBVOQ_blog.html

Image of the day from the animal kingdom:

Newt Gingrich is shameless

More: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/newt_gingrich_is_shameless.html

Guess this is supposed to tell us if you can’t beat um, join um. No thanks, I’ll take a pass. If noxious Newt is the nominee I’ll vote 3rd party. I thought I was an “anyone except Obama” voter. That was when it didn’t appear that Newt had a snowball’s chance. Now I know that voting for this POS is a bridge too far down the  slime trail for me.

 What’s Going On In The World?

Greek debt deal back to the drawing board as deadline looms

Quote For Today:

   We operate under a jury system in this country, and as much as we complain about it, we have to admit that we know of no better system, except possibly flipping a coin.  ~ Dave Barry

  My Pick Of The Litter Today

Romney paid 6.2 million in taxes – gave even more to charity

The basics, via Reuters:
 

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney released tax records on Tuesday indicating he will pay $6.2 million in taxes on a total of $42.5 million in income over the years 2010 and 2011.  Bowing to increasing political pressure to provide more detail about his vast wealth, the former private equity executive released tax returns indicating he and his wife, Ann, paid an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent in 2010. They expect to pay a 15.4 percent rate when they file their returns for 2011.

Romney’s tax rate is below that of most wage-earning Americans because most of his income, as outlined in more than 500 pages of tax documents, flows from capital gains on investments.  Under the U.S. tax code, capital gains are taxed at 15 percent, compared with a top tax rate of 35 percent for wage earners.

 
Before we go any further, two timely reminders from conservative wonk Avik Roy regarding that last bolded bit:
 

(1) This 15% Romney tax rate issue is a canard. Romney paid both 15% and corporate income taxes (usually 30%+) on his investments, as all do.

(2) Companies that Bain invested in paid income taxes that are thereby not passed through as profits to partnership.

 
Roy reinforces points argued eloquently by the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore last year during the Democrats’ “Buffett Tax” nonsense:
 

The reason for the light capital gains and dividend tax is that corporations pay up to a 35% tax on their profits before a dime of it is passed on to shareholders. The real tax rate on corporate income paid to individuals through capital gains and dividends is not 15%. It is closer to 45% once you count the tax on corporate profits. If the dividend tax rises to 20% next year from 15% today, then the total tax on dividends paid to shareholders would be closer to 50%, and that doesn’t include state and local taxes.

 
Here’s another detail that Lefties won’t want to focus on, conveniently buried in the penultimate paragraph of Reuters’ write-up:
 

Regardless, the emerging picture was of a man of great means who contributes mightily to charity. The documents showed he and his wife contributed $7 million in charity over the two years, much of it going to his Mormon church.

 
So between taxes and charity, the Romney’s paid $13.2 million since 2010 — roughly one-third of their income.  How will the media treat these numbers?  Blogger Exurban Jon has it about right:
 

The headline should be that Romney donated 15% of his income [to charity]. Instead it’ll be that he “only” paid 14% to almighty government.

 
Right, because private charity isn’t the State, and the State is king.  Hey, remember this?

 http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2012/01/24/breaking_romney_paid_62_million_in_taxes_over_last_two_years_gave_even_more_to_charity

    Stories/Articles You Might Find Interesting – or not

The Florida Debate: Losers and more losers

More: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katehicks/2012/01/23/the_florida_debate_losers_and_more_losers

 15 questions the mainstream media would ask Obama if he were a Republican

During the practically endless series of Republican debates, we have heard almost every question imaginable asked to Republican candidates – if by every question imaginable, you mean horribly slanted, often irrelevant questions designed to make them look bad and help Obama. We’ve heard questions about contraceptives, religion, Newt’s angry ex-wife, Gardasil, etc., etc., etc. So, what would happen if the mainstream media treated Barack Obama the exact same way that they treat Republicans? The questions might sound a little something like this.

1) Numerous Mexican citizens and an American citizen have been killed with weapons knowingly provided to criminals by our own government during Operation Fast and Furious. If Eric Holder was aware that was going on, do you think he should step down as Attorney General? Were you aware that was going on and if so, shouldn’t you resign?

2) In 2010 you said Solyndra, which gave your campaign a lot of money, was “leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future.” Today, Solyndra is bankrupt and the taxpayers lost $500 million on loans that your administration was well aware might never be paid off when you made them. What do you say to people who say this is evidence of corruption in your administration?

3) Unions invested a lot of time and money in helping to get you elected. In return, they gained majority control of Chrysler, the taxpayers lost 14 billion dollars on General Motors, and General Motors received a special 45 billion dollar tax break. What do you say to people who view this as corruption on a scale never before seen in American history?

More: http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2012/01/24/15_questions_the_mainstream_media_would_ask_barack_obama_if_he_were_a_republican

Just attack the media and we’re at your feet

By Mona Charen

So the message South Carolina voters sent was — “Anything goes so long as you attack the media.”

 Whatever you think about Mitt Romney’s shortcomings as a candidate — and I agree with Mark Steyn, who said of his stump speech, “The finely calibrated inoffensiveness is kind of offensive” — embracing Gingrich is like bashing yourself in the face to relieve the pain in your foot.

Certainly it’s possible that the voters have done all of us a favor. If Gingrich’s success there scares Romney into becoming a better candidate, then it may work out well in the general election.

But really South Carolina — a whooping ovation for Gingrich’s denunciation of John King? King asked a perfectly legitimate question. It was Marianne Gingrich, not “the liberal media” who made this a story. Gingrich knows this perfectly well, but he can turn a hangnail into a conspiracy by the media. And so he crafted his reply to leave the second Mrs. Gingrich’s agency out of it entirely. “To take an ex-wife and make it two days before the primary, a significant question in a presidential campaign, is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine.”

“Every person in here has had someone close to them go through painful things,” Gingrich added, as if he were the wounded party.

Sorry, but it’s impossible to sit still for that kind of cynical manipulation of an audience. Gingrich is not just someone who has “gone through painful things.” Instead, he has inflicted pain quite promiscuously to those nearest him and justified it because he was destined for greater things. He cheated on his first wife, Jackie, and then divorced her while she was fighting cancer, telling a friend that she was neither “young nor pretty enough” to be the wife of a president. Jackie was obliged to petition the court to enforce child support and alimony orders. Gingrich later peddled the story that it was she who had wanted the divorce. “He can say that we’d been talking about it for 10 years,” she told the Washington Post in 1985, “but it came as a complete surprise.”

More: http://townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/2012/01/24/just_attack_the_media_and_were_at_your_feet

  Romney Strikes Back as Gingrich Plays Defense

At the last two debates in South Carolina, Newt Gingrich took charge with stinging attacks on the moderators and on Mitt Romney. But in the first of two Florida debates this week, Romney took the offensive landing a number of telling blows on Gingrich. For the first time in this series of debates, the former Massachusetts governor didn’t play the frontrunner attempting to rise above the fray with his only focus on Barack Obama. Instead, he zeroed in on Gingrich’s record as a Washington influence peddler and paid advocate. Though at times he tried to turn the tables on Romney, Gingrich was consistently put on the defensive as he tried to defend his record leaving him few opportunities to score points or to deliver one of his trademark rants at the expense of those hosting the debate.

In the midst of what was one of the most boring of all the GOP debates it was a good night for Romney and may help slow down Gingrich’s momentum. But this was no knockout. Gingrich was on his heels most of the night but there were no gaffes. Nor is it clear whether merely going on the attack is going to convince conservatives that Romney is their kind of candidate. For all of his aggressiveness and strong arguments about free enterprise, Romney still lacked the ideological passion that helped propel Gingrich back into the lead last week.

More: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/01/23/romney-gingrich-florida-debate/

He’s no damn good

Gingrich resigned from the house under a cloud 

Mitt Romney contended Monday night that Newt Gingrich “resigned in disgrace” from his job as House speaker. Gingrich said he left voluntarily. But there was a good chance he would not have been reelected speaker if he had stayed.

“The truth is that the members of his own team, his congressional team after his four years of leadership, they moved to replace him,” Romney said. “They also took a vote and 88 percent of Republicans voted to reprimand the speaker and he did resign in disgrace after that. This was the first time in American history that a speaker of the House has resigned from the House.”

Gingrich did resign from the House in early 1999, but not as a direct result of his 1997 House reprimand for ethics violations. He left under pressure from Republican colleagues after the party did poorly in the 1998 House elections.

Putting the best light on that chapter of his career, Gingrich said in the debate that he took responsibility for Republican losses in House races, and added, “I didn’t want to stay around, as Nancy Pelosi has. I wanted to get out and do other things.”

His rival on the stage, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, was closer to the truth when he suggested Gingrich had too little support in the Republican caucus to be reelected speaker. “He didn’t have the votes. That was what the problem was,” Paul said. “So this idea that he voluntarily reneged and he was going to punish himself because we didn’t do well in the election, that’s not the way it was.”

Romney cited a House Ethics Committee investigation aimed at Gingrich that looked into whether he had violated federal tax law and misled committee investigators. Gingrich said all but one of the charges were dropped –- the one that stuck was that he had misled investigators on the committee. However, as the Washington Post Fact-Checker notes, the committee also concluded that one of Gingrich’s political groups had improperly coordinated with a tax-exempt project he had launched.

Romney is right that most Republicans voted to reprimand Gingrich at the time, and the speaker was fined $300,000 to pay the costs of the investigation.

http://nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/gingrich-resigned-from-the-house-under-a-cloud-20120123

Newt puts deserved pressure on Mitt

More: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view/20220124let_gop_nod_be_won_on_merit_newt_puts_deserved_pressure_on_mitt/

 Mitt vs. Newt: the Gloves Come Off

By Pat Buchanan 

Newt Gingrich’s surge to success in South Carolina has surely brought joy to the Obama White House.

For his 12-point victory ensures the fight for the GOP nomination will not end soon and will get nastier. Indeed, it already has. Whether Newt or Mitt Romney emerges victorious, the candidate who comes out of the Republican convention will be bruised and bloodied.

Consider, first, Newt.

According to a Fox News poll, 56 percent of the American people have an unfavorable opinion of the former speaker. Only 27 percent hold a favorable opinion. By two to one, the nation has a negative view of Newt. And as Newt has been a national figure for two decades, to reverse the impression he has left on the country would require an immense volume of positive media, free and bought.

And Newt is getting neither.

Now, in Florida, Romney has decided to tear the scab off, and 24 hours after his South Carolina defeat, he is busy at it.

Newt, said Mitt, “was a leader for four years as speaker of the House. … And at the end of four years … he was a failed leader, and he had to resign in disgrace. … He was investigated (by) an ethics panel and had to make a payment associated with that, and then … 88 percent of his (fellow) Republicans voted to reprimand Speaker Gingrich.”

“What’s (Newt) been doing for 15 years?” Mitt asked. “He’s been working as a lobbyist … and selling influence around Washington.”

Mitt did not bring up Newt’s three wives and the tawdry tale told by second wife Marianne to ABC. Yet the super PACs of the Democratic Party will make sure the women of America know how Newt treated his first two wives, should he become the nominee.

Yet Mitt has his own problems, after his worst week in South Carolina.

By going negative on Newt, he will drive Newt’s negatives higher. But attack politics polarizes a party and drives up the negatives of the attacker, as well. The Eagle Scout image of Mitt will suffer — both from what Newt is doing to him and from what he feels he must do to Newt.

Rep. Dick Gephardt decided he had to take down Howard Dean, who was riding high in Iowa in 2004. Gephardt ended up taking both of them down. John Kerry evaded the bloodletting, won the caucuses and cruised to the nomination.

Mitt has suffered, too, from the malicious portrayal of his days at Bain Capital by Gingrich and Rick Perry, who portrayed Bain as a vulture sitting on a tree limb, looking for sick companies to swoop down on, pick the carcass clean and leave a skeleton.

Romney’s revelations last week that he pays only 15 percent of his income in federal taxes, that he has investments in the Caymans, that the $375,000 he earned in speaking fees did not amount to much and that he enjoys firing people — even if it was insurance companies — all feed into the caricature of a country-club Republican with nothing in common with people who live from paycheck to paycheck.

Wealth is not necessarily an impediment to political success. FDR, a Hudson Valley aristocrat, and JFK were men of wealth who did less to earn their money than Mitt did to earn his. But they carried it more easily.

When JFK was being attacked because his father, who amassed his pile in stocks and liquor, had poured huge sums into the West Virginia primary on his son’s behalf, Sen. Kennedy joked about it, telling the Gridiron Club that his father had sent him a telegram just before the primary: “Don’t buy a single vote more than is necessary. I’ll be damned if I’ll pay for a landslide.”

It is hard to recall a primary season that got this ugly this early. Words like dishonest, liar and corrupt, and phrases like serial hypocrite have come not just from independent and unaccountable super PACs but from the paid media of the campaigns and the candidates themselves.

The primary season that much resembles this one is 1964. Then, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, icon of the Eastern liberal establishment that had imposed nominees Wendell Willkie, Tom Dewey (twice) and Dwight Eisenhower on the party, lost the California primary and the nomination to Barry Goldwater.

Speaking to that divided convention, Rockefeller was booed and jeered from the balconies when he called on the delegates to condemn the John Birch Society equally with the Ku Klux Klan and Communist Party.

The party never came together that fall. Goldwater suffered a defeat unequaled since Alf Landon carried two states in 1936. The ideological divide between Romney and Newt is not nearly so great as that between Goldwater and Rockefeller, but the personal animosity is certainly approaching that.

With the Tea Party recoiling from Romney and rallying to Newt, and regular Republicans coalescing around Mitt, with dozens of primaries and caucuses ahead, Tampa just might end up looking like the Cow Palace in ’64.

http://townhall.com/columnists/patbuchanan/2012/01/24/creators_oped

Image of the day from the animal kingdom:

Breaking: Obama’s SOTU Will Be Same-Old, Same-Old, with Cliched GOP Response

From Politico, a vague preview of the speech that will itself be a vague preview of the next year:

Obama aides have already forecast that the president’s message will describe a sharp philosophical divide on the proper role of government in the modern economy, with Obama leading Democrats in insisting that government promote greater opportunity and fairness. …

Democratic strategists say Obama has been laying the groundwork for months for an election-year agenda — and possibly a second term — that is focused squarely on the economy and the middle class.

More here.

What is this, 2000? 1980? I don’t know what is more frustrating and tedious: All the talk about the “middle class” or the pretense of a grand divide over the “role of government in the modern economy.”

link: http://reason.com/blog#article_155230

Quote For Today:

 The heart never grows better by age, I fear rather worse; always harder. A young liar will be an old one; and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older. ~ Lord Chesterfield

  My Pick Of The Litter Today

Democrats cry extremist

By Lorita Doad

Democrats seem to have two preferred adjectives to describe Republicans this year– racist and extremist. Angry charges of “Extremists!” have become common and ubiquitous. Rarely do leading Democrats, such as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, ever talk about Republicans without adding the charge of extremist. Listen to them and it becomes quite clear that they believe “extremist” Republicans in Congress are the root of all evil. And, that these very “extremists’ that are responsible for the American credit-worthiness downgrade, loss of competitiveness, high unemployment, and a sluggish economy. Golly.

Charges of “extremists” Republicans have grown so common, that Democrat leaders such as Wasserman-Shultz have recently taken an even greater leap in logic and lament that fact that these same “extremist” Republicans are responsible for a break down in common civility and even hateful violence. Not only has the main stream media missed the irony of that charge, but all too often they echo the very same charges of “extremism”.

A closer look at what Democrats mean by “extremists” is long overdue–so what (by Democrat standards) does it really mean to be “extreme”?

Let’s see. The Tea Party is considered by Democrats to be “extreme” because they gather in huge numbers to protest profligate spending, out-of-control expansion of government, excessive intrusion of government into the private sector and individual lives and, of course, because they are concerned with a growing trend to ignore the Constitution. So, according to Democrats, anyone with those kinds of beliefs is “extreme”.

What else do Democrats consider “extreme”? More than anything else, anyone talking about the $15 Trillion ($15,000,000,000,000.00) of debt our nation has incurred, anyone who is worried about how we are going to repay that debt is automatically viewed as a “extremists”.

Democrats, by comparison, almost never voluntarily talk about the huge national debt and annual trillions of dollars of spending deficits. For good reason too. Long ago, Democrats understood the dangers of reminding voters that our national finances are precarious, spending unsustainable, and our debt has ballooned.

Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, has not bothered to approve a budget in over three years because it is likely that he does not want Americans to know just how dire out national finances have become. Instead, Reid hopes to squeeze one more Democrat golden egg (green jobs programs, posh bailouts to cronies such as Solyndra, dubious high-speed rail lines to nowhere, subsides for unions) before the Golden Goose that was once the American economy is smothered and killed by the enormous new burdens and bureaucratic impediments he and others in the Democrat party have so unwisely championed.

More: http://townhall.com/columnists/luritadoan/2012/01/23/democrats_cry_extremists/page/full/

    Stories/Articles You Might Find Interesting – or not

It’s Working In Walker’s Wisconsin

More: http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_1_scott-walker.html

 Gingrich’s tax plan would eliminate any tax liability for Romney

Perhaps like others who hope for a Romney nomination, I like Gingrich.  I wish him well — I hope he continues to prosper and to generate ideas for the conservative movement.  However, his shining oratory has outpaced the cogency of the ideas expressed therein.  As he tries to gin up populist resentment against Romney’s wealth, he has lost all philosophical and political coherence.  He needs to be called out with regard to his mocking of Romney’s tax payments, in particular.

As was pointed out in a news release from Reuters, Newt’s tax code ideas would mean that people like Romney would pay much less in taxes — nothing, actually —  whereas Romney’s tax proposals would be much more progressive by comparison.  If Newt believes that Romney’s paying 15 percent on his capital gains is somehow unethical or otherwise worthy of ridicule, he needs to be advocating tax reform which would ensure those “in the upper one percent” pay more, not less on their income.  He cannot have it both ways. 

Under Gingrich’s plan, Romney would pay nothing in taxes, nor would billionaire hedge fund managers pay anything, who also report their income as capital gains.  Newt’s plan would not only mean that Romney would pay zero in taxes on capital gains, but that he would pay nothing in taxes at all!

Under Romney’s tax plan, those who earn under $200,000 would not pay capital gains taxes, and therefore this cut would not benefit him personally.  Instead, Romney’s tax proposals on capital gains would simply maintain the status quo as it would apply to those making more than 200k annually.

According to another report from Reuters, Gingrich’s tax records reveal that he paid thirty-one percent income taxes and that his income comes from his media and consulting conglomerates, Gingrich Productions and Gingrich Consulting.  A lot of that income probably derives from lobbying, but his tax returns are not particularly transparent and therefore his fees and clients from lobbying are not clear for the public to see.

Gingrich pays taxes at a higher rate not necessarily due to his civic virtue, but due to the tax code. That tax code locks Romney in at 15 percent regardless of his own volition.  As Gingrich probably realizes, most Americans who are just casual observers of politics will not make such distinctions.  He wants to benefit from populist resentment of wealth disparity while advocating policies that would exacerbate that disparity.  That hardly makes Newt the working class hero he is apparently positioning himself to be. 

 http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/01/gingrichs_tax_plan_would_eliminate_any_tax_liability_for_romney.html

For the past few months we’ve been hearing a lot in the mainstream media about the demise of the Tea Party and conservative Republicans in general. After their triumph in 2010 the Tea Party’s influence was supposed to have peaked last summer during the debt ceiling crisis. The failure of presidential candidates who openly identified with the movement such as Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain and Rick Perry was seen as evidence of their not being able to even influence the GOP. But yesterday’s big victory in the South Carolina primary by Newt Gingrich is a clear indication that conservatives are still calling the tune in the Republican Party and anyone who thinks their concerns can be ignored or swept to the side is mistaken.

Gingrich won because, unlike Mitt Romney, he was able to tap into the genuine anger that conservatives in this country feel for President Obama and his cheerleaders in the liberal media echo chamber. While Gingrich’s claim to be the true conservative in the race is highly questionable, there is no question that he was the best at articulating the same fervor that helped galvanize Tea Party sentiment and sweep the last midterm elections. If Romney hopes to keep Gingrich’s latest comeback from gaining enough momentum to deny him the GOP nomination, he is going to have to find a way to convince conservatives that he is not merely a technocrat who understands the economy but a man who understands and can articulate their core beliefs. In other words, not only is the Tea Party’s moment not in the past, it is still very much the future of the Republican Party.

Needless to say, liberals are not taking this development with a good grace.

The New York Times editorial column this morning attempted to rationalize Gingrich’s win by attributing it to conservative racism. This is a liberal canard that has been repeated endlessly in the last two years without any proof to back it up. But the anger that the Times and other liberals mistake for racism is genuine. It is not, however, fueled by racism or a wish to deny minorities opportunities but a function of the frustration that many Americans feel about Obama’s reckless spending and taxing that is leading the country over the economic cliff.

 link: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/01/22/south-carolina-conservatives-tea-party-gingrich/

It’s not wonder we have so many phonies in office. Here is another, one of many, articles that is urging Mitt Romney to be someone he isn’t. Phony up the rhetoric and personna and you too can lie your way into the White House. It has become all too apparent to me that we have the government we deserve. God help us all.

Something To Think About

Why do people vote for candidates they know are lying to them?

  Giffords to resign from congress

More: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0112/71787.html

Romney throws first punch in Florida

ORMOND BEACH, Fla. – In the opening round of what promises to be a slugfest in Florida, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Sunday called rival Newt Gingrich a “failed leader” and influence-peddling lobbyist while suggesting it’s now a three-way contest for the GOP nomination – a strategic assessment that favors his own chances of winning the state’s Jan. 31 primary.

At a campaign rally after his disappointing loss in the South Carolina primary Saturday, Romney offered a biting portrayal of Gingrich’s record as House speaker and later as a business consultant to companies seeking access to Capitol Hill power brokers.

“At the end of four years (as speaker), it was proven that he was as failed leader. And he had to resign in disgrace. I don’t know whether you knew that,” Romney said, referring to a 1997 House reprimand of Gingrich for ethics violations, which also resulted in a $300,000 fine.

“Well, what’s he been doing for 15 years? He’s been working as a lobbyist, yeah. He’s been working as a lobbyist and selling influence around Washington. He’s been working for Freddie Mac. Heard of those guys?” Romney said, in a state where housing foreclosures, including some presided over by the mortgage giant, have left the economy in tatters.

http://nationaljournal.com/2012-presidential-campaign/romney-throws-his-first-punch-in-florida-20120122?mrefid=election2012

White House rushes to define Keystone message ahead of Republicans

 link: http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/205655-white-house-rushes-to-define-keystone-message-ahead-of-gop

The truly dismal State of the Union

There is one person — one American among the 300 million of us — who is not to blame for the state of the union. Everyone else, each of you, in some small or large way, bears some share of the blame, but not this guy. Not one little bit.

This guy is Barack Obama. He is not the least bit to blame for the dismal state of the U.S. economy. George W. Bush is, for sure, and that evil Dick Cheney, oh, no doubt. House Speaker John A. Boehner — evil, too — is, of course, to blame. But guess what? So is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, and every Democrat in the House and Senate.

Now, President Truman made it very clear: The buck stops with him. No passing the buck for that guy. But Mr. Obama blames everyone but himself. Mr. Bush, he says, left the nation in a ditch, a deep ditch, and he’s been digging out since he took office. And Congress? Those guys are just plain awful, he says. So mean. Wah, they won’t do anything I want done! Mr. Obama feels so sure about it that he’s basing his re-election campaign on bashing Capitol Hill.

But with the president delivering his State of the Union speech to Congress Tuesday night, let’s pause here to take as hard look at the real state of America, by the numbers, using only cold, hard facts.

link: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/22/curl-the-truly-dismal-state-of-the-union/?page=all#pagebreak

The road ahead looks good for Romney despite South Carolina

McClatchy Newspapers

link: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/01/22/3385304/the-road-ahead-looks-good-for.html

Image of the day from the animal kingdom:

Oh good, Mother Nature has spread some camouflage for me.

Quote For Today:

 Government is merely a servant – merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. ~ Mark Twain

Sunday Sermon

    Stories/Articles I found of interest this Sunday Morning

  Romney gives strong speech after South Carolina primary   

 Mitt Romney, in his speech after the South Carolina primary, spent time focusing on Barack Obama and the alternate choices that the GOP can offer America: it’s a party that believes in prosperity, and celebrating success, rather than big government.

He also said he’d win the battle if Obama wanted to compare his record of job losses and crony capitalism with Romney’s record of job creation and free market success.

Romney also assured he’s in it for the long haul.

“I will compete in every single state,” Romney declared.

Fox News’ Bret Baier, in his report, also highlighted the Romney statement that those who pick up the weapons of the Left today will find it turned against them tomorrow (a hit at Gingrich, perhaps?).

Romney also said he would embrace competition, and that it’s making his campaign stronger.

link: http://townhall.com/tipsheet/elisabethmeinecke/2012/01/21/romney_gives_strong_speech_after_south_carolina_primary

Newt’s open marriage with conservatives

Jeb Bush Refrains From Endorsing Anyone

Jeb Bush, the popular former Florida governor, said he will “stay neutral” in the state’s Republican presidential primary while warning his party’s candidates to leave the “circular firing squad” of their debates behind and start appealing to a broader audience.

Bush’s remarks, in an exclusive interview, establish a challenge for his party’s candidates as the contest advances to Florida, where the Jan. 31 primary will take the race into its biggest and most diverse arena yet. The winner will be awarded all of the state’s 57 presidential convention delegates.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have courted Bush’s endorsement in recent days, he says. In December, his father, former President George H. W. Bush, told the Houston Chronicle he was giving Romney an “unofficial” endorsement. John H. Sununu Sr., the senior Bush’s former White House chief of staff, is serving as a surrogate for the Romney campaign.

ink: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-22/jeb-bush-cautions-republicans-on-tone-without-endorsing-any-candidate.html

IMO this is worse news for Romney than Gingrich. I don’t think anyone expected Bush to endorse Gingrich.

 Three takeaways from South Carolina

Analysts are kidding themselves if they say Romney is the inevitable nominee. Simply put, there are very few states where he can perform among the major demographic groups the way he performed in South Carolina and still expect to win. And remember, this is still in many ways the electorate that selected Christine O’Donnell, Carl Paladino and Linda McMahon as its standard-bearers — in very blue states with relatively moderate GOP electorates, no less.

This vote was an utter repudiation of Romney, and it absolutely will be repeated in state after state if something doesn’t change the basic dynamic of the race. It is true that Gingrich doesn’t have funds or organization, but he gets a ton of free media from the debates, and he has an electorate that simply wants someone other than Romney.

That’s not to say that Romney’s money and organization don’t give him advantages — they do. He remains the GOP front-runner, in my view, because it isn’t clear how well Gingrich can survive the long haul. But there’s a not-insubstantial chance, call it 35 percent, that Romney won’t be the nominee. 

More: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/01/22/three_takeaways_from_south_carolina_112861.html

Will a Long Race Help the Eventual Winner?

One of the pieces of conventional wisdom we’ve been hearing a lot of in the last few weeks is that a long, tough fight will be better for the eventual winner of the Republican presidential contest than one that is quickly decided. Since Newt Gingrich’s win in South Carolina tonight ensures that the nomination can’t be sewn up in short order, that theory is going to be tested in the coming weeks and months.

The proof for this thesis is supposedly the outcome of the 2008 Democratic primary battle in which an extended contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was seen as helping Obama in the long run.

Most observers believed Obama was toughened up the process in which he was forced to campaign all across the country. But there is a big difference between what happened to Obama and what Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich will undergo in the days ahead. Without the sympathetic if not adoring coverage that Obama got in the spring of 2008 from the mainstream press, the result of further GOP bloodletting will be two bleeding candidates no matter who turns out to be the winner.

It should be remembered that though Clinton criticized Obama for his shortcomings, most of the press did not choose to make much of the eventual Democratic nominee’s weaknesses. Even those stories that were reported extensively, such as his association with the radical Reverend Jeremiah Wright, were quickly put to rest after an Obama’s speech about race in which he skirted the basic issues.

More: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/01/21/gop-race-long-battle-gingrich-romney-obama-clinton/

President Newt? Not likely but scary for GOP

Humiliated and humbled, Romney remains the front-runner for the GOP nomination and, by all conventional measures, is best equipped to push Obama from office. But he has now lost two of three races and leaves South Carolina as a tarnished brand: Equivocations over his tax filings and tone-deaf comments about his wealth and status played into Democratic plans to portray Romney as a cold-hearted, flip-flopping, fat cat who would say or do anything to get elected.

Gingrich is an unabashed egoist (“I think grandiose thoughts”) who likes to compare himself to historic figures including Abraham Lincoln, Charles de Gaulle, the Duke of Wellington, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. He might soon add Jesus Christ to that list because Gingrich has had more political resurrections this past year than the son of God.

Abandoned by his staff  last spring and written off by the GOP establishment in Iowa, Gingrich’s record is a testament both to his resilience and volatility. Republicans who worked the closest with Gingrich while he was House Speaker — a tenure marked by extraordinary success and failure — call him brilliant thinker but an insufferably mercurial leader. Many of them oppose his presidential candidacy.

More: http://decoded.nationaljournal.com/2012/01/not-for-publication.php

 With Keystone it’s Harvard vs Heartland

Two people named Redford have sharply differing opinions about Barack Obama’s decision to block the contentious Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would have run from Alberta down to Texas. The obscure Redford (Alison, the Premier of Alberta) is “bitterly disappointed,” while the famous Redford (Robert, the Hollywood celebrity) is ecstatic. He calls it “a victory of historic proportions” against “one of the most nightmarish fossil fuel projects of our time.” Whose side you’re on may say a lot about where you live and who you voted for.

Meantime, a new energy boom has broken out in the United States. As companies tap into vast new reserves of shale oil, thousands of new jobs – far more than the pipeline promised – are being created in Texas, North Dakota and Ohio. On Tuesday, the day before the Keystone decision, the President’s Council on Jobs called for aggressive “all-in” expansion of gas, oil and coal production.

As for Keystone, much of it probably will get built anyway – just not, for now, the bit that goes over the border. Harvard may have won the battle. But the heartland is winning the war.

link: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/margaret-wente/with-keystone-its-harvard-vs-the-heartland/article2309950/

Image of the day from the animal kingdom:

   Quote For A Sunday Morning:

     “I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself. ” ~ Oscar Wilde