The Reagan Conservatives Blog

Bonamassa, Black Country Communion Launch U.S. Tour In June!

2011-06-03T07:35:00.000-04:00

Gov. Scott Walker Sits Down With Heritage and Answers the Tough Questions

2011-02-21T19:31:00.000-05:00

From our friends at The Heritage Foundation:

Teachers’ unions and representatives of every liberal interest group in the country may have taken over the streets of Madison for demonstrations, marches and speeches, but inside the Wisconsin governor’s mansion its chief tenant remains calm and resolute. The Badger State’s budget will be balanced, Gov. Scott Walker (R) assured The Heritage Foundation in a one-on-one interview. The stakes in Wisconsin are high not just here, but across America.

“I’ve said all along the protesters have every right to be there, but I’m not going to let tens of thousands overload or overshadow the millions of people in Wisconsin, the taxpayers of the state, who want us to do the right thing and balance the budget,” Gov. Walker told us.

Fourteen state Senate Democrats fled to Illinois last week, preventing a quorum and blocking passage of Walker’s budget repair bill. But that doesn’t dissuade Gov. Walker. He told Heritage he would prefer to see the stalemate last indefinitely rather than compromise on his principles.

For the strength to stand so firmly, Gov. Walker said he draws on his past experience as Milwaukee County executive—a fiscal conservative leading a county that voted overwhelmingly for President Obama in 2008 by a margin of 67% to 32%.

The political role model Gov. Walker looks up to is also important, as it is none other than President Ronald Reagan. Of Reagan, Gov. Walker said, “He knew who he was, he knew where he was going and he did what he had to do to get there.”

Reagan was no stranger to bold and difficult decisions, and Gov. Walker said he was prepared to follow in the former president’s footsteps for as long as he served in office.

In 1981, about six months after taking office, Reagan defined the tenor of his administration with his own bold decision to fire more than 11,000 air traffic controllers who ignored the president’s orders to return to work. Reagan emerged victorious, his presidency emboldened by the conflict.

The stakes were high for Reagan then—he risked an enormous public backlash by disrupting commercial air travel—and they’re high for Gov. Walker now. In many ways, Wisconsin will be the prototype for other deficit-laden states whose leaders attempt to balance their budgets.

Gov. Walker is aware of just what Wisconsin—and the rest of the country—stands to gain or lose with the ultimate outcome of this debate. That’s precisely why he insists the outcome be a balanced budget. For that, he’ll endure personal insults, the comparisons to deposed Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak and Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. He’ll face days of chanting outside his window and threats to his safety.

In fact, Gov. Walker is not merely enduring—he’s “feeling good,” he said. He’s even found something in common with the protesters: They share the same taste in music. The songs blaring over the loudspeaker take him back to his college and high school days.

The music’s not the only aspect of the protests Gov. Walker appreciates. He’s also grateful they’ve remained peaceful—even this weekend, when his supporters turned up to counter the protesters. Maybe that’s why Gov. Walker seems so grounded even in the midst of the churning: He’s appreciative of, rather than worried about, what the protests signify—that the people of Madison, those on both sides of the issue, care enough to come to the Capitol to debate.

But that’s where he draws the line, promising to remain committed to his principles in the face of adversity. “We have to be clear and realistic about our challenges,” he said, “but optimistic about our solutions.”

Wisconsin Doubleheader on Sunday Morning!

2011-02-19T19:10:00.002-05:00

Rep. Paul Ryan on "Face The Nation" and Gov. Scott Walker on "Fox News Sunday". Two of the R.C. Blog's favorites....

Joe Bonamassa "Dust Bowl" Album To Be Released In March

2011-02-19T12:50:00.005-05:00

The world's No. 1 guitarist and blues man Joe Bonamassa is set to release his latest studio album "Dust Bowl" on March 22. You can pre-order the new album by clicking on the album cover link below.

This is Bonamassa’s ninth studio release on his own J&R Adventures label, which he created with longtime manager Roy Weisman. Dust Bowl was produced by Kevin “Caveman” Shirley (Black Crowes, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin) making it their sixth collaboration in five years. Shirley most recently produced Bonamassa’s 2010 release Black Rock, which debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Blues Chart and #39 on the Top 200.

Dust Bowl was recorded in sessions at Black Rock Studios in Santorini, Greece, Ben’s Studio in Nashville, TN, The Cave in Malibu, CA and The Village in Los Angeles, CA. It combines the gritty, blues-based tones of Bonamassa’s first albums with the fluid, genre-defying sounds he’s mastered in the years since and adds a dash of country from Joe’s collaborations with the best of Nashville including legends Vince Gill and John Hiatt.

“Dust Bowl,” Shirley explains, “is very firmly rooted in the Blues, but definitely explores the outer reaches of the genre and showcases Joe’s amazing virtuosity as he digs deep into his psyche in some lengthy and blistering guitar solos.”

“This is the best album we’ve ever done,” adds Bonamassa. “I’m finding more inspiration in storytelling in my 30s, in writing songs that are about something more profound than ‘my baby left me.’ I like albums that are made with the right intentions and sound organic and a little rough around the edges, like a great band playing live in the room, and that’s what we accomplished with Dust Bowl.”

On the John Hiatt/John Porter-penned “Tennessee Plates,” Hiatt duets with Bonamassa and Vince Gill lends his signature guitar stylings. Gill also plays on “Sweet Rowena,” a song he composed with frequent writing partner Pete Wasner. Arlan Scheirbaum, Beth Hart and Blondie Chaplin play on the Michael Kamen/Tim Curry track “No Love On The Street,” and Glenn Hughes sings on the Paul Rodgers-penned “Heartbreaker.”

The album opens with Bonamassa originals “Slow Train,” an old-style British Blues song, and title track “Dust Bowl,” the album’s first single. “The title track of the album just describes my life. It really fits my voice, it fits me as a solo artist and just has a really nice feel to it.” Other standout originals include “Black Lung Heartache,” “The Last Matador of Bayonne,” and “The Whale That Swallowed Jonah.”

The Madison Disgrace

2011-02-18T10:43:00.000-05:00

Column by Larry Kudlow on National Review Online:

The Democratic/government-union days of rage in Madison, Wis., are a disgrace. Paul Ryan calls it Cairo coming to Madison. But the protesters in Egypt were pro-Democracy. The government-union protesters in Madison are anti-democracy. In fact, Democratic legislators are fleeing the state so as not to vote on Gov. Scott Walker’s budget cuts.

The teachers union is going on strike in Milwaukee and elsewhere. They ought to be fired. Think Reagan PATCO in 1981. Think Calvin Coolidge police strike in 1919.

Governor Walker is facing a $3.6 billion budget deficit, and he wants state workers to pay one-half of their pension costs and 12.6 percent of their health benefits. Currently, most state employees pay nothing for their pensions and virtually nothing for their health insurance. That’s an outrage.

Nationwide, state and local government unions have a 45 percent total-compensation advantage over their private-sector counterpart. With high-pay compensation and virtually no benefits co-pay, the politically arrogant unions are bankrupting America — which by some estimates is suffering from $3 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

Exempting police, fire, and state troopers, Governor Walker would end collective bargaining for the rest. Unions could still represent workers, but could not get pay increases above the CPI. Nor could they force employees to pay dues. And in exchange for this, Walker promises no furloughs for layoffs.

So, having lost badly in the last election, the government-union Democrats have taken to the streets. This is a European-style revolt, like those seen in Greece, France, and elsewhere. So it becomes greater than just a fiscal issue. It is becoming a law-and-order issue.

President Obama, who keeps telling us he’s a budget cutter, has taken the side of the public unions. John Boehner correctly rapped Obama’s knuckles for this. If the state of Wisconsin voters elected a Chris Christie-type governor with a Republican legislature, then it is a local states’ rights issue.

Obama should stay out. And Governor Walker should stand tall and stick to his principles. Otherwise, a nationwide revolt of state-government unions will destroy the country as well as its finances.

Wisconsin Govenor Scott Walker Goes After State Public Unions

2011-02-17T20:40:00.000-05:00

The RC Blog proudly supported Scott Walker for governor of Wisconsin almost two years ago and predicted that he would quickly become not only a star in the Midwest, but one in the nation. He has not disappointed.

He rocked Madison with Friday's announcement that the Wisconsin legislature would take up a bill that he supports that disbands the state's public unions and requires state employees to contribute more to pensions and health insurance. With a vote in the Wisconsin Senate expected today, the WI Democratic members left the state! There are also mass revolts in the streets of Wisconsin. This all comes on the heels of his decision to send Federal funds for high speed rail from Milwaukee to Madison back to Washington, which roiled Dems nationwide.

Over the past 48 hours, Gov. Walker has been vilified by the press and seems to have taken the title as "Most Hated U.S. Conservative" by the Mainstream Media from Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli. Thumbs up to Gov. Walker in his attempt to fix the state's budget and put Wisconsin on better footing for the future. Unions nationwide have been a core component of our nation's fall over the past 25 years. They have outlived their usefulness.

We continue to support and applaud Governor Walkers efforts.

Heritage Foundation Tribute to Ronald Reagan

2011-02-06T11:01:00.000-05:00

HAPPY 100TH BIRTHDAY, MR. PRESIDENT!

2011-02-06T00:01:00.001-05:00

Reagan vs. the Progressives

2011-02-05T17:12:00.000-05:00

By Paul Kengor on The American Spectator:

America this week marks the centennial of Ronald Reagan's birth. Born February 6, 1911, Reagan lived a remarkable life, with a presidency of utmost consequence, winning, among other things, 44 states in 1980 and 49 in 1984, plus a Cold War against a truly Evil Empire. Oh, yes, he also won a long battle -- less recognized -- against progressives. It was a crucial battle -- even less understood -- that began for Reagan, with fascinating twists, back in Hollywood. The Reagan centennial is a golden opportunity to consider what happened there and to draw lessons for what America faces with progressives today.

In the 1980s, the progressives Reagan faced called themselves "liberals." In the 1940s, when Reagan first encountered them, as a liberal himself, they weren't shy about calling themselves progressives. More telling, Reagan was shocked to find that many of those spearheading "progressive" groups and causes weren't really progressives but were communists exploiting progressives, their labels, and their organizations. Understanding this is no mere historical curiosity; no, for Reagan, it was a life-changing wake-up call, initiating a personal-political transformation that, ultimately, and dramatically, led to the presidency and victory in the Cold War. That path included Reagan handing the progressives their biggest setback since the founding of their movement -- a setback they're striving to "change" and "reform" right now.

Before considering Reagan's conversion, it's key to understand what was happening with Hollywood's progressives in this period. Many "progressives," especially following the surge by Communist Party USA (CPUSA) during the Great Depression, were actually closet communists lifting the progressive label to dupe progressives. This was done quite cynically and successfully, whether ordered and orchestrated from CPUSA headquarters in New York, from CPUSA's branch office in Los Angeles, or from Comintern headquarters in Moscow. It's fascinating, and would be hilarious if not so sad, that the Soviets even referred to Joe Stalin as a progressive. The Soviet Ministry of Education framed Stalin as "the great leader of the Soviet people and of all progressive mankind."

Similarly, in Washington, some self-proclaimed "progressives" serving President Franklin Delano Roosevelt were actually communists penetrating and influencing the administration: Lauchlin Currie, Harry Dexter White, Harold Glasser, Alger Hiss. Even FDR's most trusted adviser, Harry Hopkins, may have been a closet communist masquerading as a progressive. That's the conclusion of some experts who have dissected the Venona transcripts.

The communist pilfering of the "progressive" label was evident in a major Congressional report in December 1961, the most in-depth investigation of communist front groups ever done. Titled, "Guide to Subversive Organizations and Publications," the investigation went back to the early 20th century. Probably the most popular title listing in the 994-page cumulative index is the word "progressive."

That brings me to Hollywood, where the exploitation of the progressive label was especially rich, and where communists truly desired to hijack the motion-picture industry. Progressives would be central to that plan.

Consider the group, Progressive Citizens of America (PCA), which was thoroughly penetrated. One liberal actor exploited was the great Gene Kelly, a pleasant, patriotic American. Kelly was enlisted as a progressive prop to stand in front of a giant American flag and lead the Pledge of Allegiance. He rallied the progressives in reverential renditions of "America." In one sorry display, the all-American boy was cast to provide the introduction at PCA's initial meeting in Los Angeles on February 11, 1947. The evening's theme was established before Kelly spoke, as a large screen flashed photographs of bombed Hiroshima, with rolling footage of the dead and maimed. That evening, PCA board members would be elected. On the ballot were secret hard-line Hollywood communists like John Howard Lawson and Dalton Trumbo, as well as non-communist liberals like Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, John Garfield, Gregory Peck, Lena Horne, and Melvyn Douglas.

Take another sorry case, where Katharine Hepburn was the opening speaker at a May 19, 1947 Progressive Party Rally at Hollywood Legion Stadium. Draped in a long, flame-red dress, the liberal New Englander read a speech scripted by Trumbo -- and so admired by People's Daily World that it reprinted the entire text.

This manipulation was old hat for the comrades, who found no shortage of progressives to do the bidding of Stalin.

Alas, into this waded an actor named Ronald Reagan, mid-30s, politically passionate. As a committed FDR liberal, Reagan was susceptible to the conniving of communists. He was targeted immediately after World War II, a quick victim of several front-groups. He was very "naïve," Reagan admitted later, "blindly and busily" joining "every organization I could find that would guarantee to save the world." He was "an active" but unwitting participant "in what now and then turned out to be communist causes." The deceived Reagan assumed these folks were "liberals, and being liberals ourselves, [we] bedded down with them."

Most redeeming about Ronald Reagan is that when he learned, he really learned. By October 1947, he was testifying before Congress on communist infiltration. Later still, he would explain: "The communist plan for Hollywood was remarkably simple. It was merely to take over the motion picture business … [as] a grand world-wide propaganda base." Before TV and mass production of foreign films, said Reagan, American movies dominated 95% of the world's screens, with an audience of "500,000,000 souls" around the globe. "Takeover of this enormous plant and its gradual transformation into a communist gristmill was a grandiose idea. It would have been a magnificent coup for our enemies."

In Reagan's view, those were the stakes, prodded by a "master scheme" to "line up big-name dupes to collect money and create prestige." Progressives were central to the plan. Even at the height of party membership, CPUSA never had more than about 100,000 members; it couldn't advance without progressives.

Americans needed to wake up, as had Reagan.

Of course, the rest is history. Reagan began a historic march to the presidency that, by the 1980s, threatened to squash the progressive long march that preceded him. He had splendid success, but one thing about progressives -- which Reagan understood -- is their patient ability to work slowly, incrementally, with victories not necessarily at the ballot box but in other influential facets of American life, like education. They waited and waited, until, in November 2008, enough oblivious Americans, especially moderates and independents, were duped like Reagan once had been -- and voted into office a progressive-in-chief campaigning under the banner of "change." Some things never change.

We must learn what Ronald Reagan learned: The progressive left isn't going away, ever-awaiting the next step in the evolutionary chain. It's an ebb and flow, but always creeping toward centralization; or, what Reagan called "creeping socialism." We must awaken, providing progressives with more setbacks. Most of all, we must not to be fooled, misled, duped, certainly not more than once. Ronald Reagan's life, and path, is a history and life lesson for all of us.

Reagan at 100 -- Super Bowl XLV Tribute Commercial

2011-02-05T17:01:00.002-05:00

Watch President Reagan's Centennial Celebration Events Live!

2011-02-05T14:13:00.000-05:00

Both tonight at tomorrow, there are a number of events surrounding President Reagan's 100th birthday that can be watched online.

Saturday, February 5, 2011 -- 7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m.
The Reagan Foundation will stream live A Concert for America -- A Tribute to Ronald Reagan. The concert is comprised of live music and in-person and video tributes from world leaders and prominent individuals whose lives were impacted by the legacy of President Reagan. The evening's lineup includes The Beach Boys, Lonestar, Lee Greenwood, Fred Thompson, Jerry West, and video tributes from George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

Sunday, February 6, 2011 -- 10:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
The Reagan Foundation will stream live President Reagan's official birthday celebration. The program includes a 21-gun salute, a F-18 flyover, keynote remarks by Secretary James Baker and the official laying of the presidential wreath on President Reagan's memorial site.

Click here to watch these events....

Feulner on Reagan at 100

2011-02-05T08:17:00.001-05:00

It's been more than six years since our nation bid farewell to Ronald Reagan, born 100 years ago this month. Yet it seems at times as though he never left.

Consider how Reagan's name surfaced repeatedly after the most recent State of the Union address as pundits - both liberal and conservative - weighed the speech's effectiveness. His Photoshopped image is on the cover of Time, his arm draped around President Obama.

"If Obama has bounced back from the drubbing his party took at the polls last November," Richard Norton Smith writes in the magazine, "it is in no small measure because he has been acting positively Reaganesque as of late."

Acting, perhaps, but not governing. It's worth reminding ourselves as we mark the centennial of Reagan's birth what he accomplished - and how.

It's important to do this in part because much of what passes for praise of Reagan is veiled criticism. Reagan is hailed, for example, as a great communicator. And with good reason: Few politicians could match his rhetorical skill and his ability to articulate great themes that resonated with the American people.

But that's where many on the left stop. What they really seek to emulate is not his policies or his agenda. They hope that if they study his methods, a little of his "magic" will rub off on the liberal policies that have proved such a hard sell over the past two years. Dress the liberal agenda in Reaganesque terms, and the electorate is yours, right?

What condescending nonsense. It wasn't just Reagan's ability to communicate that endeared him to millions of Americans. It was the fact that he was articulating their most deeply cherished beliefs. It went well beyond the optimistic outlook - which, although welcome, is something any president can attempt. It was because he spoke in direct terms that avoided the usual buzzword approach we get from Washington.

He used that approach to say what many Americans thought: Taxes are too high - let's cut them. Inflation is too high - let's tame it. The Cold War can be won, not managed, and the world made safer for everybody - let's do it.

The fable of the left (the hard left, anyway - many others are coming around) is that this was all smoke and mirrors. But the facts tell a different story. Starting from the "stagflation" mess his predecessor handed him, Reagan created a genuine economic miracle. After a three-stage tax cut and a reduction in government growth, our economy began to expand - by 31 percent from 1983 to 1989 in real terms. Americans of every class - rich, middle-class and poor - saw their wealth increase.

It was our nation's longest peacetime expansion in a long and prosperous history. By decade's end, we had added the economic equivalent of a new Germany to our gross national product. Inflation was cut by two-thirds, interest rates by half. Unemployment dropped to the lowest level in 15 years.

Even before the end of his first term, the signs of distinct progress were unmistakable. Small wonder that Reagan's famous "Morning in America" campaign resonated with so many voters, leading to a landslide re-election in 1984. Starting from the "stagflation" mess his predecessor handed him, Reagan created a genuine economic miracle.

People loved him for it. That's why so many politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, seek to portray themselves as latter-day Reagans. To decide whether they deserve this mantle, however, consider this quote from his farewell address:

" 'We the people' tell the government what to do; it doesn't tell us. 'We the people' are the driver, the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast."

Only a politician who agrees with this - and governs accordingly - can be considered Reagan's true heir.

Ed Feulner is president of the Heritage Foundation (heritage.org).

The Classical Virtues of Ronald Reagan

2011-02-04T14:25:00.001-05:00

From our good friend, Dr. Lee Edwards at the Heritage Foundation, who wrote this piece on Heritage.org earlier this week...

The best political leaders embody the classical virtues of courage, prudence, justice, and wisdom. President Ronald Reagan had all these qualities and in abundance.

Courage

When he was shot on March 30, 1981, President Reagan seemed to spend most of his time reassuring everyone that he was not seriously hurt, although the bullet had stopped only one inch from his heart and the doctors were very concerned about his substantial blood loss. As he was wheeled into the operating room, he noted the long faces of his three top aides—James Baker, Ed Meese, and Michael Deaver—standing in the hall and asked, “Who’s minding the store?” When a distraught Nancy Reagan made her way to him, he lightly said, “Honey, I forgot to duck.”

Both conservative and liberal commentators lauded Reagan. “The president’s imperishable example of grace under pressure,” wrote George Will, “gave the nation a tonic it needed.” “Everybody knows,” wrote James Reston of The New York Times, “that people seldom act in the margin between life and death with such light-hearted valor as they do in the movies. Yet Ronald Reagan did.”

It also takes courage to challenge an enemy like the Soviet Union when the stakes are high. There was vehement Soviet opposition to his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), but the President did not budge. At the Reykjavik summit, when both sides were very close to a far-ranging agreement on nuclear weapons, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev pressed hard for laboratory testing only of SDI. Reagan refused. His steadfast commitment to SDI convinced the Kremlin that it could not win, or afford, a continuing arms race and led to an end of the Cold War at the bargaining table and not on the battlefield.

Prudence

Rather than dispatching American combat troops to trouble spots, Reagan assisted pro-freedom anti-Communist forces in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Angola, and Cambodia. National security analyst Peter Schweizer estimates that the cash-strapped Soviets spent $8 billion a year on counterinsurgency operations against U.S.-backed guerrillas. The accelerating Soviet losses in Afghanistan demoralized the Kremlin and the Red Army, hastening the collapse of the Soviet empire.

At home, Reagan practiced the politics of prudence by relying upon his “70 percent rule”: If he could get 70 percent of what he wanted in the face of opposition, he would take his chances on coming back and getting the other 30 percent later. He wanted his 25 percent tax cut to take effect immediately in 1981 but agreed to phase it in over three years because the cuts were across the board. He was that rare politician who knew when to bend a little and when to stand firm.

Justice

Although it was not politically correct, President Reagan steadfastly defended the rights of every American—from the moment of conception to that of natural death. For him the sanctity of life was not a slogan but a fundamental principle to be honored. When in 1983 he wrote “Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation” (an essay for Human Life Review later published as a book), he became the first sitting President to write a book while in the White House.

His Administration sought not only to put America’s financial house in order and rebuild the nation’s defenses but also to put America’s moral house in order by protecting the unborn and allowing God back into the classroom.

Wisdom

President Reagan had the ability to foresee what others could not. In the early 1980s, liberal intellectuals such as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and John K. Galbraith were lauding the economic accomplishments of the Soviet Union. At the same time, Reagan told the British Parliament that a “global campaign for freedom” would prevail over the forces of tyranny and that “the Soviet Union itself is not immune to this reality.” By the end of the decade, as he predicted, Marxism–Leninism was dumped on the ash heap of history.

In late 1981 and all of 1982, when his tax cuts had not yet kicked in and the U.S. economy still lagged, President Reagan reassured his worried aides and counseled them to stay the course. He had faith in the American people, who, if they could be “liberated from the restraints imposed on them by government,” would pull “the country out of its tailspin.” In the closing days of 1982, America began the longest peacetime economic expansion in U.S. history up to that time, creating 17 million new jobs during the Reagan years.

Ronald Reagan’s trust in the people and his love of freedom were rooted in two documents—the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. From his very first national speech on behalf of Barry Goldwater’s presidential bid in October 1964 to his farewell address to the nation in January 1989, Reagan turned again and again to the wisdom of the Founders. Indeed, more than once, he sounded like one of them.

Reiterating the central role of the American Revolution, the President said: “Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words, ‘We the people.’”

We tell the government what to do, he said; it doesn’t tell us. This simple and yet revolutionary idea of “We the people,” he explained, was the underlying basis for everything he had tried to do as President.

Classical Virtues

The President reassured the men and women of the “Reagan Revolution” that they had made a difference. They had made America—that “shining city on a hill”—stronger and freer and had left her in good hands.

The city never shone brighter than when it was led by Ronald Reagan, who exemplified the virtues of courage, prudence, justice, and wisdom.

Lee Edwards, Ph.D., is Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought in the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

Planned Parenthood Busted Again!

2011-02-04T07:09:00.001-05:00

Live Action.org has done it again! You must watch this video as two undercover operatives from Live Action catch a Planned Parenthood manager in New Jersey doing what we all know Planned Parenthood does. It is both sickening in terms of how they treat minors and promote abortion and infuriating to know that Planned Parenthood receives more than $300 million annually from U.S. taxpayers. There are some new members of the 112th Congress trying to put an end to their federal funding. Let’s hope and pray it can get accomplished!

MRC Report Released Recalling Hateful Rhetoric Directed at Reagan

2011-02-03T12:45:00.000-05:00

As the nation prepares to pay tribute to former President Ronald Reagan on the 100th anniversary of his birth, it is amazing to consider that his success at turning the U.S. away from 1960s-style liberalism was accomplished in the face of a daily wave of news media hostility. The media’s first draft of history was more myth than reality: that Reagan only brought the nation poverty, ignorance, bankruptcy, and a dangerously imbalanced foreign and defense policy.

The Media Research Center has assembled a report documenting the “objective” national media’s most biased takes on President Reagan, his record and his times, including 22 video clips and matching MP3 audio:

I. Reagan the Man: Reporters often agonized over why the American public liked Reagan, that they couldn’t see through the White House spell and see Reagan in the contemptuous light that the media did.

II. The Reaganomics Recovery: Reagan’s policies caused a dramatic economic turn-around from high inflation and unemployment to steady growth, but the good news was obscured by bad news of trade deficits, greedy excesses of the rich, and supposedly booming homelessness.

III. Reagan and National Defense: Ronald Reagan may have won the Cold War, but to the media, the Reagan defense buildup seemed like a plot designed to deny government aid to the poor and hungry, and was somehow the only spending responsible for “bankrupting” the country.

IV. Reagan and Race: Using their definition of “civil rights” — anything which adds government-mandated advantages for racial minorities is “civil rights” progress — liberal journalists suggested that somehow Ronald Reagan was against liberty for minorities.

V. The Reagan Legacy: The media painted the Reagan era as a horrific time of low ethics, class warfare on the poor, and crushing government debt.

To download a PDF copy of the MRC report, click here.

PolitiFact.com Confirms Virginia AG Cuccinelli's EPA Claim

2011-01-31T12:47:00.000-05:00

On January 17, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli was speaking at a political rally about a number of the EPA's job killing regulations.

In that speech, Ken said:

"[Tailpipe emissions rules], if fully implemented with all the regulations that go with it, they will keep the temperature from rising nearly five one-hundredths of a degree Fahrenheit by 2050."

Since his speech, the regional and national media has taken issue with AG Cuccinelli's statement and claimed that it is false, as the press has done with many of his other statements regarding the environment and EPA.

Thankfully, PolitiFact.com, a non-partisan fact-check organization started by the St. Petersburg Times to help find the truth in American politics, completed a review of AG Cuccinelli's statement and confirmed its validity.

PolitiFact said:

"The EPA said the reductions would be between 0.011 degrees Fahrenheit and 0.027 degrees Fahrenheit and would occur by 2100. The agency's claim is even more modest than Cuccinelli suggested."

What's the big deal with this?

According to PolitiFact: "The agency says these new rules would add about $950 to the price of each new car but that the higher price would be offset by lower fuel costs over three to five years."

Let's recap:

The EPA wants to impose $950 per car in regulatory costs - to affect a change of, at most, .027 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100.

Click here to see the entire PolitiFact article.

FactChecking President Obama's SOTU Address

2011-01-26T22:39:00.002-05:00

From our friends at FactCheck.org regarding last night's SOTU:

We found no outright false factual claims in Obama's State of the Union address, but we did note some that were arguable, and some promises that may prove unrealistic.

* He called his Race to the Top initiative "the most meaningful reform of our public schools in a generation." That's debatable. Some independent experts say Bush's No Child Left Behind program had a greater impact.

* The president set a goal of generating 80 percent of the nation's electricity from "clean" sources by 2035. That's ambitious. The first large-scale "clean coal" plant has yet to begin operation. And Obama counts nuclear energy as a "clean" source, despite the unresolved waste issue.

* He set a goal of giving 80 percent of the U.S. population access to high-speed rail in the next 25 years. But the U.S. only has one high-speed rail line in operation now.

* He said his new health care law will slow rising health care costs. But the office of Medicare's chief actuary estimates the law won't have much impact on costs, and there will be a slight rise in total spending as more people gain coverage under the law.

* He said "exports are up" since he set a goal of doubling them in five years, which is true. But the rise so far falls short of the pace required to meet his goal.

Teach Your Children Well

2011-01-26T13:22:00.001-05:00

There is a new tool available to teach others -- especially kids -- conservative principles.

"All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen, I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an American, let them know and nail them on it. That would be a very American thing to do." -- Ronald Reagan

Whether you need a refresher course in the principles of conservatism or you are teaching them to others, especially your children, "What Am I Conservative?" by Melanie Angell Elliott is an alluring choice.

The book contains a series of 24 principled and well-reasoned sections, each based on a particular tenet of conservatism.

You'll identify with the principles and use them to craft a conservative ideology. It's certainly no tome -- quick quotes from famous conservatives and the Founding Fathers induce a brisk yet enlightening reading pace.

If you have a family, this book is perfect -- you can ready a chapter per day with your children or use it as a refernce to counter liberal teachings at school.

To order "Why Am I Conservative?", click here.

President Obama Delivers a "Mr. Compromise Goes to Washington" SOTU

2011-01-26T09:11:00.000-05:00

Following last November's tidal wave that destroyed the Liberal monopoly in Washington, President Obama delivered his most centrist speech of his presidency last night at the State of the Union address. He appealed to the public that he has the right answers for our country, beyond those proposed by the far right and far left in office. He delivered himself as "Mr. Compromise".

He proposed discretionary cuts to the operations of the federal government, consolidation and elimination of similar federal programs, health care tort reform, and holding teachers accountable -- all traditional Republican ideals. Sadly, these were all issues that he either spoke against or ignored during his first two years in office. In the next few months, President Obama will submit his FY 2012 budget and government reform packages to Congress. We'll watch closely to see if his words last night match the words on the draft legislation.

Based on his centrist promises made last night, the re-election campaign (Obama '12) is now underway. He knows that he needs to run a different campaign than the one that got him elected into office. The American people have voted against his radical reform measures taken during his first two years. It will be interesting to see how attractive it is to the far left, whom he has now abandoned, the African American community, who voted in record numbers for him in 2008, and the broad independent voting base.

Ryan's Rule

2011-01-25T15:01:00.000-05:00

From today's National Review Online:

Under a new rule, Paul Ryan can set budget levels for 2011.

All eyes will be on President Obama this evening as he delivers his much-anticipated State of the Union address. But it’s a momentous day for House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) as well. Not only has he been tapped to deliver the GOP response to Obama’s speech, but by the time the president arrives at the Capitol, the House almost certainly will have passed a rules resolution giving him unilateral authority to roll back the budget to 2008 levels. This, as you’ll recall, was a central component of the GOP’s “Pledge to America.”

To be clear, the rule itself does not cut spending; it merely gives Ryan the ability to set limits that the House Appropriations Committee must respect when it passes a spending resolution for the remainder of fiscal year 2011. These limits are usually set by a “concurrent” resolution — that is, one passed by the House and the Senate but not approved by the president — but Congress failed to pass one last year. Defense spending and entitlements are not included. And of course, to take effect, a spending resolution that passes the House under Ryan’s policy will also have to go through the Democratic Senate and President Obama.

But today’s vote on the rule will force all House members to go on the record on spending cuts and — because most Democrats will likely oppose the measure — set up a contrast between the two parties ahead of the president’s address. It will also serve to highlight Ryan’s remarks. All considered, today will mark the opening salvo of the showdown over the budget.

Predictably, House Democrats are up in arms over the new rule. They say that in addition to excluding the Senate from the budget process, it puts too much power in the hands of one person. And not just any one person. Ryan’s reputation as a perennial budget hawk has many on the left in a frenzy over the prospect of deep spending cuts. Many are already sounding the alarm over entitlement programs, which Ryan dared to single out for reform in his much-maligned (by the Left) “Roadmap for America’s Future” — despite the fact that, again, these are not included in Ryan’s new budget powers. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said that simply by selecting Ryan to give the SOTU rebuttal, House Republicans were “doubling down on their disastrous plans to gamble Social Security funds on Wall Street and dismantle Medicare.” The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein predicted that elevating Ryan in such a way could come back to haunt the GOP by highlighting the “Roadmap,” which Klein called a “timebomb” for Republicans.

As for the vote itself, Democrats contend that it is little more than a publicity stunt — an attempt to steal the president’s thunder on the day of his address. Rules Committee ranking member Louise Slaughter (D., N.Y.) chided Republicans for trying to “cut spending with a press release.”

Republicans, on the other hand, point out that similar authority was given to the budget chairman in 1999, after Congress had similarly failed to adopt a budget resolution the previous year. “It strikes me as an odd communications strategy for House Democrats to devote considerable time and energy to draw attention to their own historic budget failure,” Ryan spokesman Conor Sweeney tells National Review Online. “They oversaw an unprecedented breakdown in the budget process for fiscal year 2011, and are now complaining that fiscal year 2011 has deviated from the normal budget process.”

In a hearing last week, House Rules Committee chairman David Dreier (R., Calif.) emphasized that Republicans, contrary to some Democratic claims, would not be “gutting” any programs simply by returning to 2008 levels, and that the new rule was “merely the very first step in an ongoing effort to bring our federal budget back into the black.”

The House Appropriations Committee must draft a spending bill to fund the government for the remainder of fiscal year 2011 (through September) once the current continuing resolution expires on March 4. Appropriations chairman Hal Rogers (R., Ky.) has welcomed the new rule. “As I have said before, it is my intention to craft the largest series of spending cuts in the history of Congress,” he said in a statement. “My committee is working diligently on this right now.”

Another looming deadline is February 15, when President Obama is due to release his budget for fiscal year 2012. That’s when Ryan will get his first crack at drafting his own annual budget. The bulk of the budget fight will consist of efforts to reconcile these competing proposals. “I expect our numbers will be slightly lower than his,” Ryan joked at the National Press Club earlier this month. Another obvious point of contention will be Republican efforts to exclude from the budget any funds slated for the implementation of Obamacare.

Today’s vote, Obama’s address, and Ryan’s response will lay the groundwork for the struggle ahead. In fact, a war of words is already underway, as early reports indicate the president will be discussing the need for “investments” in areas such as infrastructure, clean energy, and education. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) says that’s a “code word for more spending,” but added that Republicans are eager to hear what Obama has to say. After a series of moves suggesting that the White House intends to embrace the political center, they hope to find out just where he stands on fiscal issues. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) called the speech “a trust-but-verify moment” for the GOP. Either way, don’t expect an overabundance of applause lines designed to appeal to Republicans.

Of course, a bitter fight between the two parties over budget cuts is to be expected. But there have also been signs of a conflict brewing within the GOP itself. The conservative House Republican Study Committee released a proposal last Thursday that would cut a whopping $2.5 trillion over the next decade. The plan would cap federal spending at 2006 levels — significantly lower than 2008 levels — and was seen by many as a direct challenge to the House Republican leadership. “This is the day we stop kicking the budget can down the road and get our fiscal house in order,” Rep. Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.) said at a press conference introducing the plan.

The Rules Committee has already made efforts to shore up its proposal. The resolution the House is voting on today includes an amendment from freshman member Rep. Tim Scott (R., S.C.) that changes the original text authorizing Ryan “to reduce spending through a transition to non-security spending at fiscal year 2008 levels.” It now reads: “. . . to fiscal year 2008 levels or less.”

The measure is certain to pass the House, so Democrats will quickly turn their attention to Ryan’s response to the president. Now that his party is in the majority, the new budget chair will be under much greater scrutiny. On the left, he’ll be criticized no matter what — he’ll either “destroy the middle class” by cutting too much, or break campaign promises by cutting too little.

Conservatives, meanwhile, are thrilled to have Ryan in charge of setting spending limits and responding to the president. Republicans believe that few are better suited than Ryan to make the case for — and then implement — fiscal prudence.

— Andrew Stiles is a 2011 Franklin Fellow.

Abortion Debate Returns, But Now in a Pro-Life Nation

2011-01-25T10:38:00.002-05:00

Great piece from Chris Stirewalt at FoxNews.com...

The abortion debate has returned with vigor to Congress after many years of dormancy, and the result may be different this time around. That's because while Washington wasn't watching, America became a pro-life nation.

House Republicans are taking up the issue in a variety of ways. First, they're looking to close the loophole in President Obama's national health-care law which they say could provide federal subsidies for elective abortions.

They're also looking to strip funding for Planned Parenthood, as part of their general move for budget austerity. And we can expect more moves on this front in the weeks to come.

Part of this is Republicans doing the bidding of the people who put them back in the majority. Pro-life groups are a huge bloc of the Republican coalition and activists demand results in exchange for all the help they provide. Even if the GOP doesn't succeed in changing laws right away, it's good base politics.

And for all the talk about the 2010 elections being all about taxes, spending and the size of government, the issue of abortion played an unmistakable role on both sides.

Of the 22 pro-life House Democrats who voted for Obama's health-care law, despite concerns among pro-life groups about the federal subsidy loophole, only five returned to Congress this year. Some would have lost or retired anyway, but there's no doubt that the issue, and the pressure from pro-life groups, turned some races.

For many swing-state voters, especially moderate, Catholic Democrats, abortion is a make or break issue. John Kerry's 2004 presidential defeat in Ohio could be attributed to Catholic voters who preferred his policies to those of George W. Bush on almost every issue, except that one.

One of the other notable trends of 2010 on abortion was the number of Democrats who used the issue as part of a bid to paint their Republican challengers as "extreme." Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado rallied socially liberal Denver suburbanites to his side by running ads casting challenger Ken Buck as an abortion hardliner. House candidates across the country used the same approach to varying degrees of success.

And while Republicans will continue to be at risk of the extremist label, especially in suburban districts, the last decade shows a remarkable shift in public attitudes on abortion.

FOX News polls show a 20-point shift on the subject in the past 14 years. In 1997, 50 percent of respondents considered themselves "pro-choice," while 40 percent considered themselves "pro-life." In the poll out last week, the numbers were reversed. Half of the respondents said they were "pro-life," while only 40 percent embraced the "pro-choice" label.

Gallup has been tracking the issue since the 1970s, and what their polls reveal is that in the 37 years since the Roe v. Wade decision, Americans became at first more and more pro-choice but, starting in the late 1990s, moved against the concept of elective abortions.

The high-point for the pro-choice movement was in 1990 when Gallup found 31 percent thought abortion should be unrestricted, 53 percent thought that it should be allowed under only certain circumstances and 12 percent thought it should always be illegal.

In Gallup's last poll, taken in the summer of 2009, only 21 percent were pro-choice absolutists, 57 percent thought the practice should be limited and 18 percent favored a total ban.

So how did America become a pro-life nation?

Part of it is generational. For Baby Boomers, the right for a woman to choose to have an abortion was a central battle in the fight for gender equality. The issue was all tied up with the Equal Rights Amendment, women's liberation and other political fights of the 1970s. Being pro-life was equated with being anti-equality.
For the children of Baby Boomers who were not there for the creation of this confusing political hybrid, the issue doesn't seem to fit. Plus, equality isn't as grave a concern for women today. The battles of previous generations seem like remote concerns.

Part of it is also technological. The ultrasound machine has had a huge effect on the debate over when life begins. The mysteries of "quickening" and gestational development have given way to 3-D pictures of little people with little fingers and little toes. Proud parents get these pictures framed and keep them on their desks now.

Add to that the revolutionary advances in care for premature births and in-depth studies of fetal development and you have badly damaged the case that abortion does not end a life.

Social conservatives are usually on the losing end of societal trends. Gay marriage seems increasingly likely and gays will soon serve openly in the military.

Social conservatives have lost their stands against no-fault divorce, gay adoption, smutty television shows and other bright-line social issues. America has a more permissive culture than it did 10 years ago and history tells us that it will likely be even more permissive in another decade.

But on abortion, it is possible that in the long term, the right may win the battle. One day, Democrats may have to do on abortion what they have done in the past decade on gun control and cede the issue.

Chris Stirewalt is FOX News' digital politics editor. His political note, Power Play, is available every weekday morning at FOXNEWS.COM.

Father-Daughter Conversation....

2011-01-25T10:32:00.001-05:00

A bit of light humor provied by Kip P.:

She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch conservative, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs.

The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school.

Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, "How is your friend Audrey doing?" She replied, “Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over.”

Her wise father asked his daughter, “Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA."

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, “That's a crazy idea, how would that be fair! I've worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!”

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, “Welcome to the conservative side of the fence.”

RSC Proposes Welcomed Changes to Federal Budget

2011-01-21T14:16:00.000-05:00

Much praise from the R.C. Blog to Rep. Jim Jordan and the rest of the Republican Study Committee for yesterday's budget proposal to eliminate more than $2.5 trillion in non-security discretionary spending by the federal government.

The proposal does what Republicans have been talking about for two years -- "repeal" of remaining stimulus funds (now $45 billion), privatizing Fannie and Freddie ($30 billion), repealing Medicaid' FMAP increase ($16.1 billion), and what they estimate at $330 billion in discretionary spending cuts. Highlights of these projected annual savings:

- Cutting the federal workforce by 15 percent through attrition, and do this by allowing only one new federal worker for every two who quit.

- Killing the "fund for Obamacare administrative costs" for $900 million

- Ending Amtrak subsidies for $1.565 billion

- Ending intercity and high speed rail grants for $2.5 billion

- Repealing Davis-Bacon for $1 billion

- Cutting annual general assistance to the District of Columbia by $210 million, and cutting the subsidy for DC's transit authority by $150 million.

Reforms that go after their own perks:

- Cutting the Federal Travel Budget in half, for $7.5 billion

- Cutting the Federal Vehicle Budget by 1/5, for $600 million

- Halve funding for congressional printing - $47 million annual savings

- Ending the death gratuity for members of Congress

And cuts that get revenge for Juan Williams: $445 million from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, $167.5 million from the NEA, and $167.5 million from the NEH.

For a copy of the Spending Reduction Act, click here.

EWTN Acquires National Catholic Register Newspaper

2011-01-19T12:01:00.000-05:00

EWTN Global Catholic Network today announced that it has signed a letter of intent to acquire the National Catholic Register, the nation’s leading Catholic newspaper.

“I am very pleased and excited that the Register will now be a part of the EWTN family,” said Michael P. Warsaw, the Network’s president and chief executive officer. “All of us at EWTN have great respect for the Register and the role it has played throughout its history. It’s a tremendous legacy that deserves to not only be preserved, but also to grow and to flourish.”

“I believe that EWTN will be able to provide the stability that the Register needs at this time as well as to give it a platform for its growth in the years ahead. We’re proud to be able to step in and carry on both the Register’s name and its tradition of faithful Catholic reporting on the issues of the day,” noted Warsaw.

Under the terms of the transaction, no cash will be exchanged between the parties. EWTN will take over the ongoing operational expenses of the Register and will assume the paper’s future subscription liabilities.

The acquisition of the Register is the latest in EWTN’s efforts to expand its news presence in the global Catholic digital and multimedia market. At the start of 2010, EWTN entered into a partnership with the Catholic News Agency (CNA), a Denver-based independent Catholic news media outlet with bureaus in North and South America and Europe. Under that agreement, EWTN and CNA are sharing news resources and have created a joint news service found at www.ewtnnews.com. That arrangement was recently expanded to include a new original Spanish-language news service, EWTN Noticias, (http://www.ewtnnoticias.com/) launched in January 2011.

EWTN Global Catholic Network provides multimedia services to more than 140 countries and territories. The Network transmits nine separate television channels in several languages to audiences around the world. It also operates multiple radio services including a network of hundreds of AM and FM stations, a Sirius satellite radio channel, and a global shortwave radio service. EWTN’s main website, http://www.ewtn.com/, draws more than 20 million unique visitors annually.

The National Catholic Register (http://www.ncregister.com/) grew out of Denver’s Catholic Register, which began on Aug. 11, 1905. Under the leadership of Msgr. Matthew Smith, the Register System of Newspapers was developed, with the first national edition appearing on Nov. 8, 1927. It was acquired by the Legion of Christ in 1995. To find out more about the Register, go to: http://www.ncregister.com/info/about_the_register.

Dick Morris: There are No Politics In Murder

2011-01-11T09:39:00.000-05:00

Another great article on the Left's immediate blame of the Right for Saturday's tragic killings....

THERE ARE NO POLITICS IN MURDER
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on DickMorris.com on January 10, 2011

The conventional wisdom of the media establishment that strident and outspoken political debate catalyzes violence is an absurdity! Telling people to "kill pigs" as the sixties radicals did, in fact, encouraged violence. But vigorous political debate and strongly or even passionately held views have nothing whatever to do with the decision of some nut to kill a Congressman or a president.

Fantasies about Jodie Foster, instructions from Son of Sam, or delusions of omnipotence all can cause violence, but heated political debate doesn't. To stigmatize strongly articulated opinions on the left or the right and blame them for the insane attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is outrageous.

Oklahoma City was an act of political terror, incited by resentment against federal tactics at Waco. It was not some speech that ignited Timothy McVeigh but a massive act of violence.

Ft. Hood was an act of political terror. No speech incited the attacks, but a culture of violence spawned throughout the Islamic world. The same is true of the shoe bomber, the Detroit airplane bomber, the Times Square bomber and, indeed, the terrorists of 9-11.

Neither the left nor the right should confuse political terrorism with the random insanity of a crazed gunman. The attack on Giffords had as little to do with ideology as the attack on the students of Virginia Tech or Columbine High School.

Daniel Greenfield makes a key point:

There has not been a single act of Muslim violence in the last two years that the media was willing to identify as motivated by Islam. Each and every time they had to be dragged kicking and screaming, past their cover stories, through groundless claims that the attackers were motivated by psychological problems, bullying, imaginary medical conditions or financial problems-- to some adjunct of the truth. And at the same time over the last two years, each prominent act of violence by non-Muslims was followed by an attempt to identify the attacker or attackers with mainstream Republicans in a cynical attempt to demonize and criminalize the political opposition.

But what if the killer had been a political conservative? What if he had attended Tea Party rallies or - for that matter - been active in Moveon.org or a left-leaning union? Would the killings have made the movement fair game? Would it be right to cast aspersions on tens of millions of nonviolent citizens exercising their democratic rights in the name of discouraging violence?

Since the shootings, I have gotten e mails from the BBC and Sky TV in the UK and Der Spiegel in Germany requesting interviews. How much they would like to link conservative opinions with the attempted assassination of a Congresswoman! Suddenly, they are all ears.

But their attempts at linking this insane killer to any political movement are ridiculous and preparatory to an abridgement of free speech.

Will: The Charlatans' Response to the Tucson Tagedy

2011-01-10T17:14:00.000-05:00

Following the tragic events of this weekend in Tucson and the reaction of the Left's political hacks and media operatives to immediately place the blame on the laps of the "gun-crazy Tea Partiers", George Will posted the following op-ed in today's Washington Post. It says it better than I could ever hope to communicate it...

The Charlatans' Response to the Tucson Tragedy
By George F. Will
Monday, January 10, 2011

It would be merciful if, when tragedies such as Tucson's occur, there were a moratorium on sociology. But respites from half-baked explanations, often serving political opportunism, are impossible because of a timeless human craving and a characteristic of many modern minds.

The craving is for banishing randomness and the inexplicable from human experience. Time was, the gods were useful. What is thunder? The gods are angry. Polytheism was explanatory. People postulated causations.

And still do. Hence: The Tucson shooter was (pick your verb) provoked, triggered, unhinged by today's (pick your noun) rhetoric, vitriol, extremism, "climate of hate."

Demystification of the world opened the way for real science, including the social sciences. And for a modern characteristic. And for charlatans.

A characteristic of many contemporary minds is susceptibility to the superstition that all behavior can be traced to some diagnosable frame of mind that is a product of promptings from the social environment. From which flows a political doctrine: Given clever social engineering, society and people can be perfected. This supposedly is the path to progress. It actually is the crux of progressivism. And it is why there is a reflex to blame conservatives first.

Instead, imagine a continuum from the rampages at Columbine and Virginia Tech - the results of individuals' insanities - to the assassinations of Lincoln and the Kennedy brothers, which were clearly connected to the politics of John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan, respectively. The two other presidential assassinations also had political colorations.

On July 2, 1881, after four months in office, President James Garfield, who had survived the Civil War battles of Shiloh and Chickamauga, needed a vacation. He was vexed by warring Republican factions - the Stalwarts, who waved the bloody shirt of Civil War memories, and the Half-Breeds, who stressed the emerging issues of industrialization. Walking to catch a train in Washington, Garfield by chance encountered a disappointed job-seeker. Charles Guiteau drew a pistol, fired two shots and shouted "I am a Stalwart and Arthur will be president!" On Sept. 19, Garfield died, making Vice President Chester Arthur president. Guiteau was executed, not explained.

On Sept. 6, 1901, President William McKinley, who had survived the battle of Antietam, was shaking hands at a Buffalo exposition when Leon Czolgosz approached, a handkerchief wrapped around his right hand, concealing a gun. Czolgosz, an anarchist, fired two shots. Czolgosz ("I killed the president because he was the enemy of the good people - the good working people. I am not sorry for my crime.") was executed, not explained.

Now we have explainers. They came into vogue with the murder of President Kennedy. They explained why the "real" culprit was not a self-described Marxist who had moved to Moscow, then returned to support Castro. No, the culprit was a "climate of hate" in conservative Dallas, the "paranoid style" of American (conservative) politics, or some other national sickness resulting from insufficient liberalism.

Last year, New York Times columnist Charles Blow explained that "the optics must be irritating" to conservatives: Barack Obama is black, Nancy Pelosi is female, Rep. Barney Frank is gay, Rep. Anthony Weiner (an unimportant Democrat, listed to serve Blow's purposes) is Jewish. "It's enough," Blow said, "to make a good old boy go crazy." The Times, which after the Tucson shooting said that "many on the right" are guilty of "demonizing" people and of exploiting "arguments of division," apparently was comfortable with Blow's insinuation that conservatives are misogynistic, homophobic, racist anti-Semites.

On Sunday, the Times explained Tucson: "It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madman's act directly to Republicans or Tea Party members. But . . ." The "directly" is priceless.

Three days before Tucson, Howard Dean explained that the Tea Party movement is "the last gasp of the generation that has trouble with diversity." Rising to the challenge of lowering his reputation and the tone of public discourse, Dean smeared Tea Partyers as racists: They oppose Obama's agenda, Obama is African American, ergo . . .

Let us hope that Dean is the last gasp of the generation of liberals whose default position in any argument is to indict opponents as racists. This McCarthyism of the left - devoid of intellectual content, unsupported by data - is a mental tic, not an idea but a tactic for avoiding engagement with ideas. It expresses limitless contempt for the American people, who have reciprocated by reducing liberalism to its current characteristics of electoral weakness and bad sociology.

The Reading of the Constitution on the House Floor

2011-01-06T07:18:00.000-05:00

This morning, starting at 10:30 a.m., the U.S. House of Representatives will read, in its entirety, the U.S. Constitution. What a novel idea!

I almost threw up listening to FORMER Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pontificate on the Senate floor yesterday about how his life has been devoted to defending the Constitution and how he treasures a copy of the document provided to him by former Senator Robert "KKK" Byrd. Give me a break!

Perhaps we could get the Supreme Court justices to read the Constitution at the start of its next session. Perhaps reading and hearing it will remind at least four of the justices what they are supposed to do.

Americans spend 6.1 billion hours on their taxes

2011-01-05T18:23:00.000-05:00

More proof that something needs to be done about the current tax code. Hopefully, the 112th Congress will begin to address this problem.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Filing taxes takes too long, costs too much money and is far too overwhelming a process for taxpayers.

That's the message from national taxpayer advocate Nina Olson, the watchdog charged with monitoring the Internal Revenue Service.

"There has been near universal agreement for years that the tax code is broken and needs to be fixed," Olson said in statement that accompanied her annual report to Congress released Wednesday."Yet no broad-based attempt to reform the tax code has been made."

Olson said the need for reform is clear.

Her analysis of IRS data shows that taxpayers and businesses spend 6.1 billion hours a year complying with tax-filing requirements.

"If tax compliance were an industry, it would be one of the largest in the United States," the report says. "To consume 6.1 billion hours, the 'tax industry' requires the equivalent of more than three million full-time workers."

Olson is a government official whose job is to highlight for Congress the most serious problems facing taxpayers. While it's probably not news for most Americans that the tax code is confusing, the report also points to serious problems with IRS enforcement of the code.

What A Great Day!

2011-01-05T17:18:00.000-05:00

A picture is worth a thousand words!

Two Californias

2010-12-30T13:28:00.000-05:00

Excellent piece by the great Victor Davis Hanson on National Review Online:

Two Californias
Abandoned farms, Third World living conditions, pervasive public assistance -- welcome to the once-thriving Central Valley.

The last three weeks I have traveled about, taking the pulse of the more forgotten areas of central California. I wanted to witness, even if superficially, what is happening to a state that has the highest sales and income taxes, the most lavish entitlements, the near-worst public schools (based on federal test scores), and the largest number of illegal aliens in the nation, along with an overregulated private sector, a stagnant and shrinking manufacturing base, and an elite environmental ethos that restricts commerce and productivity without curbing consumption.

During this unscientific experiment, three times a week I rode a bike on a 20-mile trip over various rural roads in southwestern Fresno County. I also drove my car over to the coast to work, on various routes through towns like San Joaquin, Mendota, and Firebaugh. And near my home I have been driving, shopping, and touring by intent the rather segregated and impoverished areas of Caruthers, Fowler, Laton, Orange Cove, Parlier, and Selma. My own farmhouse is now in an area of abject poverty and almost no ethnic diversity; the closest elementary school (my alma mater, two miles away) is 94 percent Hispanic and 1 percent white, and well below federal testing norms in math and English.

Here are some general observations about what I saw (other than that the rural roads of California are fast turning into rubble, poorly maintained and reverting to what I remember seeing long ago in the rural South). First, remember that these areas are the ground zero, so to speak, of 20 years of illegal immigration. There has been a general depression in farming — to such an extent that the 20- to-100-acre tree and vine farmer, the erstwhile backbone of the old rural California, for all practical purposes has ceased to exist.

On the western side of the Central Valley, the effects of arbitrary cutoffs in federal irrigation water have idled tens of thousands of acres of prime agricultural land, leaving thousands unemployed. Manufacturing plants in the towns in these areas — which used to make harvesters, hydraulic lifts, trailers, food-processing equipment — have largely shut down; their production has been shipped off overseas or south of the border. Agriculture itself — from almonds to raisins — has increasingly become corporatized and mechanized, cutting by half the number of farm workers needed. So unemployment runs somewhere between 15 and 20 percent.

Many of the rural trailer-house compounds I saw appear to the naked eye no different from what I have seen in the Third World. There is a Caribbean look to the junked cars, electric wires crisscrossing between various outbuildings, plastic tarps substituting for replacement shingles, lean-tos cobbled together as auxiliary housing, pit bulls unleashed, and geese, goats, and chickens roaming around the yards. The public hears about all sorts of tough California regulations that stymie business — rigid zoning laws, strict building codes, constant inspections — but apparently none of that applies out here.

It is almost as if the more California regulates, the more it does not regulate. Its public employees prefer to go after misdemeanors in the upscale areas to justify our expensive oversight industry, while ignoring the felonies in the downtrodden areas, which are becoming feral and beyond the ability of any inspector to do anything but feel irrelevant. But in the regulators’ defense, where would one get the money to redo an ad hoc trailer park with a spider web of illegal bare wires?

Many of the rented-out rural shacks and stationary Winnebagos are on former small farms — the vineyards overgrown with weeds, or torn out with the ground lying fallow. I pass on the cultural consequences to communities from the loss of thousands of small farming families. I don’t think I can remember another time when so many acres in the eastern part of the valley have gone out of production, even though farm prices have recently rebounded. Apparently it is simply not worth the gamble of investing $7,000 to $10,000 an acre in a new orchard or vineyard. What an anomaly — with suddenly soaring farm prices, still we have thousands of acres in the world’s richest agricultural belt, with available water on the east side of the valley and plentiful labor, gone idle or in disuse. Is credit frozen? Are there simply no more farmers? Are the schools so bad as to scare away potential agricultural entrepreneurs? Or are we all terrified by the national debt and uncertain future?

California coastal elites may worry about the oxygen content of water available to a three-inch smelt in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, but they seem to have no interest in the epidemic dumping of trash, furniture, and often toxic substances throughout California’s rural hinterland. Yesterday, for example, I rode my bike by a stopped van just as the occupants tossed seven plastic bags of raw refuse onto the side of the road. I rode up near their bumper and said in my broken Spanish not to throw garbage onto the public road. But there were three of them, and one of me. So I was lucky to be sworn at only. I note in passing that I would not drive into Mexico and, as a guest, dare to pull over and throw seven bags of trash into the environment of my host.

In fact, trash piles are commonplace out here — composed of everything from half-empty paint cans and children’s plastic toys to diapers and moldy food. I have never seen a rural sheriff cite a litterer, or witnessed state EPA workers cleaning up these unauthorized wastelands. So I would suggest to Bay Area scientists that the environment is taking a much harder beating down here in central California than it is in the Delta. Perhaps before we cut off more irrigation water to the west side of the valley, we might invest some green dollars into cleaning up the unsightly and sometimes dangerous garbage that now litters the outskirts of our rural communities.

We hear about the tough small-business regulations that have driven residents out of the state, at the rate of 2,000 to 3,000 a week. But from my unscientific observations these past weeks, it seems rather easy to open a small business in California without any oversight at all, or at least what I might call a “counter business.” I counted eleven mobile hot-kitchen trucks that simply park by the side of the road, spread about some plastic chairs, pull down a tarp canopy, and, presto, become mini-restaurants. There are no “facilities” such as toilets or washrooms. But I do frequently see lard trails on the isolated roads I bike on, where trucks apparently have simply opened their draining tanks and sped on, leaving a slick of cooking fats and oils. Crows and ground squirrels love them; they can be seen from a distance mysteriously occupied in the middle of the road.

At crossroads, peddlers in a counter-California economy sell almost anything. Here is what I noticed at an intersection on the west side last week: shovels, rakes, hoes, gas pumps, lawnmowers, edgers, blowers, jackets, gloves, and caps. The merchandise was all new. I doubt whether in high-tax California sales taxes or income taxes were paid on any of these stop-and-go transactions.

In two supermarkets 50 miles apart, I was the only one in line who did not pay with a social-service plastic card (gone are the days when “food stamps” were embarrassing bulky coupons). But I did not see any relationship between the use of the card and poverty as we once knew it: The electrical appurtenances owned by the user and the car into which the groceries were loaded were indistinguishable from those of the upper middle class.

By that I mean that most consumers drove late-model Camrys, Accords, or Tauruses, had iPhones, Bluetooths, or BlackBerries, and bought everything in the store with public-assistance credit. This seemed a world apart from the trailers I had just ridden by the day before. I don’t editorialize here on the logic or morality of any of this, but I note only that there are vast numbers of people who apparently are not working, are on public food assistance, and enjoy the technological veneer of the middle class. California has a consumer market surely, but often no apparent source of income. Does the $40 million a day supplement to unemployment benefits from Washington explain some of this?

Do diversity concerns, as in lack of diversity, work both ways? Over a hundred-mile stretch, when I stopped in San Joaquin for a bottled water, or drove through Orange Cove, or got gas in Parlier, or went to a corner market in southwestern Selma, my home town, I was the only non-Hispanic — there were no Asians, no blacks, no other whites. We may speak of the richness of “diversity,” but those who cherish that ideal simply have no idea that there are now countless inland communities that have become near-apartheid societies, where Spanish is the first language, the schools are not at all diverse, and the federal and state governments are either the main employers or at least the chief sources of income — whether through emergency rooms, rural health clinics, public schools, or social-service offices. An observer from Mars might conclude that our elites and masses have given up on the ideal of integration and assimilation, perhaps in the wake of the arrival of 11 to 15 million illegal aliens.

Again, I do not editorialize, but I note these vast transformations over the last 20 years that are the paradoxical wages of unchecked illegal immigration from Mexico, a vast expansion of California’s entitlements and taxes, the flight of the upper middle class out of state, the deliberate effort not to tap natural resources, the downsizing in manufacturing and agriculture, and the departure of whites, blacks, and Asians from many of these small towns to more racially diverse and upscale areas of California.

Fresno’s California State University campus is embroiled in controversy over the student body president’s announcing that he is an illegal alien, with all the requisite protests in favor of the DREAM Act. I won’t comment on the legislation per se, but again only note the anomaly. I taught at CSUF for 21 years. I think it fair to say that the predominant theme of the Chicano and Latin American Studies program’s sizable curriculum was a fuzzy American culpability. By that I mean that students in those classes heard of the sins of America more often than its attractions. In my home town, Mexican flag decals on car windows are far more common than their American counterparts.

I note this because hundreds of students here illegally are now terrified of being deported to Mexico. I can understand that, given the chaos in Mexico and their own long residency in the United States. But here is what still confuses me: If one were to consider the classes that deal with Mexico at the university, or the visible displays of national chauvinism, then one might conclude that Mexico is a far more attractive and moral place than the United States.

So there is a surreal nature to these protests: something like, “Please do not send me back to the culture I nostalgically praise; please let me stay in the culture that I ignore or deprecate.” I think the DREAM Act protestors might have been far more successful in winning public opinion had they stopped blaming the U.S. for suggesting that they might have to leave at some point, and instead explained why, in fact, they want to stay. What it is about America that makes a youth of 21 go on a hunger strike or demonstrate to be allowed to remain in this country rather than return to the place of his birth?

I think I know the answer to this paradox. Missing entirely in the above description is the attitude of the host, which by any historical standard can only be termed “indifferent.” California does not care whether one broke the law to arrive here or continues to break it by staying. It asks nothing of the illegal immigrant — no proficiency in English, no acquaintance with American history and values, no proof of income, no record of education or skills. It does provide all the public assistance that it can afford (and more that it borrows for), and apparently waives enforcement of most of California’s burdensome regulations and civic statutes that increasingly have plagued productive citizens to the point of driving them out. How odd that we overregulate those who are citizens and have capital to the point of banishing them from the state, but do not regulate those who are aliens and without capital to the point of encouraging millions more to follow in their footsteps. How odd — to paraphrase what Critias once said of ancient Sparta — that California is at once both the nation’s most unfree and most free state, the most repressed and the wildest.

Hundreds of thousands sense all that and vote accordingly with their feet, both into and out of California — and the result is a sort of social, cultural, economic, and political time-bomb, whose ticks are getting louder.

— NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, and the author of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T12:44:00.000-05:00

Keep Christ in Christmas!!!! Please pray for our troops overseas and their families back here at home for their sacrifices for our country and advancing freedom around the world!

2010 Census Results

2010-12-23T09:26:00.000-05:00

While driving to work this morning, I listened to C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" program with Census Director Groves who discussed the macro-level results of the 2010 census released on Tuesday. The population of the United States as of April 1, 2010 is 308,745,538. That is a 9.7% percent rise in population since the 2000 census. California remains the most populous state at more than 37 million people, while Wyoming remains the least at just more than 500,000 residents. A definite shift is happening in terms of residents flocking from the Northeast and Midwest and moving to the South and West. Texas gained the most House seats (+4), while Ohio lost the most House seats (-2).

It was an extremely informative interview with Director Groves and one I would encourage everyone to watch. Click here for a link to C-SPAN's web page on this issue with a link to the video of this morning's program.

Director Groves explained that the micro-level data is currently being produced by the social scientists and mathematicians and will be finalized over the next few weeks and months and will then be provided to the state legislatures for gerrymandering. Even those states that did not gain or lose seats can change the district maps based on the micro-level data. The effects of these state-by-state changes to House districts, whether added, lost, or redrawn, will be part of the 2012 election cycle. The significant gains made the Republicans within the state legislatures and governorships this past November will play a major role in the gerrymandering process and could spell long-term doom for the Democrats in many of the "purple" states. As President Obama once told us, "Elections have consequences".

AG Cuccinelli's Speech at Heritage Foundation

2010-12-17T18:44:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Nathaniel Ward and the gang at Heritage for uploading the Cuccinelli speech at the Heritage President's Club meeting earlier this month. Definitely worth the time to watch!!!!

AG Cuccinelli's Speech at the 2010 Divine Mercy Care Gala

2010-12-14T14:21:00.000-05:00

Ken Cuccinelli's speech at the 2010 Divine Mercy Care Gala from Divine Mercy Care on Vimeo.

Archie Bunker's Take on Dems In the 1970s

2010-12-14T13:20:00.000-05:00

Still rings true today!

Va. AG Cuccinelli Speaks Following ObamaCare Ruling

2010-12-13T21:29:00.000-05:00

Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli speaks following today's ruling on ObamaCare.

Judge Hudson's Ruling on the Virginia Health Care Lawsuit

2010-12-13T13:10:00.000-05:00

Click here to read Judge Hudson's ruling on the Virginia health care lawsuit

BREAKING NEWS: Judge Rules Individual Mandate Unconstitutional

2010-12-13T12:14:00.001-05:00

A victory for liberty!!!! More to follow throughout the day...

Don't Touch "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"

2010-12-13T11:54:00.000-05:00

Excellent opinion piece in the Washington Times from our friend Howie Lind...

Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently testified to Congress that members of the U.S. armed forces who oppose lifting the ban on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" should leave the military.

Maybe Admiral Mullen should heed his own advice and resign since he is so far out of step with "his" military. The majority of service members and uniformed leaders of the military do not want any changes to the current policy toward gay service members.

The proponents of changing this policy to allow gays, lesbians, and transgenders to serve openly in the U.S. military repeatedly point to two "polls", the first one that 70% of Americans agree with the change, and the second one that a "strong majority" of current service members want to change the policy based on a recent survey given to the military.

These are both wrong. Regarding the national "poll" of Americans, Admiral Mullen and other leaders in favor of lifting this ban have not explained at all to the public the negative consequences of this new policy. This is like asking Americans if they want world peace. The answer, of course is yes. For the survey to active duty military members, the question was NOT asked, "should the policy be changed?" But, rather "How should the change be implemented?" That makes a huge difference as to who actually fills out the survey especially since only 6 percent of the military responded to the survey.

The purpose of the U.S. military is to protect our nation through deterrence first; and if that fails, then through armed conflict. The fundamental ability for our military to fight and win wars is accomplished via unit cohesion. That means at the individual squad, ship, and aircrew levels, all service members must operate at 100% effectiveness. These service men and women eat, work, sleep, and bathe in very close proximity for extended periods of time. Open homosexuality at this level will degrade the cohesiveness and thereby, the combat effectiveness, of our nation's warriors.

There is no civilian comparison to this type of environment. So asking this question to the general public -- most of whom of have never served in the military -- is meaningless. This is not a civil rights issue. It is an issue of human sexuality.

And this is not about being anti-gay. It is about being pro-military and supporting the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines who do the tough work of defending our country.

Howie Lind
Commander, US Navy (retired)
McLean, VA

Ruling In Virginia Health Care Lawsuit Coming Midday Monday

2010-12-11T17:21:00.002-05:00

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s office has alerted the media that the district court decision in the lawsuit Virginia has brought over Obamacare will be handed down midday on Monday. This will be the first major decision at this level in any case brought by a state against the health care law.

Detroit News: Pence Could Steal Palin's Thunder

2010-12-11T09:30:00.001-05:00

From a few days ago in the Detroit News:

GOP Prospect Could Steal Palin’s Thunder
By Nolan Finley

If Mike Pence keeps talking, the left will soon have to stop talking about Sarah Palin.

Pence is the Indiana congressman who is weighing a run for the presidency in 2012. He stopped by Birmingham last week to speak to the Detroit Economic Club. It wasn't all that far into his speech before you realized that this guy has a message that could catch on, particularly if voters remain in their current mood.

"To restore American exceptionalism, we must end all this Keynesian spending and get back to the practice of free market economics," Pence told the audience. "The freedom to succeed must include the freedom to fail. The free market is what made America's economy the greatest in the world, and we cannot falter in our willingness to defend it."

For most of the rest of the speech, Pence laid out a blueprint for restoring the economy that focused on simplifying the tax code; adopting sound monetary policy, perhaps even a return to the gold standard; developing homegrown energy sources; reforming regulations to make them friendlier to job creators; and committing fully to free trade.

It's a message tailor made for the tea party movement, particularly on tax policy. Pence would replace all federal taxes with a single, flat income tax in the range of 17 percent, and get the government away from using taxes to manipulate behavior.

"You should someday be able to file a tax return of 140 characters or less," Pence joked. "You could Twitter your taxes."

But Pence is not a tea party maverick. He has worked within the system very effectively since first being elected to Congress in 2000.

He's thoughtful, respected by his colleagues for his intelligence and depth, and affable. "I'm a conservative, but I'm not angry about it," he once told an interviewer.

A speech he gave to Hillsdale College that was reprinted in the school's Imprimus magazine on how the office of the presidency has been distorted from the Founders' vision is burning up the Internet.

Liberal mouthpieces are desperate for Palin to emerge as the leading GOP presidential candidate, and try to pretend that the former Alaskan governor and vice presidential hopeful is the way-out-front candidate.

Pence and other rising GOP stars — including his fellow Hoosier, Gov. Mitch Daniels — are forcing them to take notice. His speech at the Townsend Hotel was covered by CNN, Fox and other national outlets.

Pence makes the pitch for returning America to its founding principles seem entirely reasonable, and quite doable. Nothing about him appears out of the mainstream.

He channels Ronald Reagan as well as anyone in the GOP stable, deftly comparing the "new normal" ideology of 2010 to the national malaise of the Jimmy Carter years. Like Reagan, he rejects the notion of lost American greatness.

Here's how he closed his speech:"I choose a boundless American future built on the timeless ideals of the American people. I believe the American people are ready for this choice and await men and women who will lead us back to that future, back to the West, back to American exceptionalism."

Mike Pence is no Sarah Palin. And that should worry the daylights out of the left.

WI Gov Elect Successful In Sending Federal High Speed Rail Funds Back to Washington

2010-12-10T21:25:00.000-05:00

Even before taking the oath of office as governor of Wisconsin, Governor-elect Scott Walker has already achieved one of his major campaign promises -- to send taxpayer-wasted high-speed rail grant money back to Washington. Yesterday, the Obama Administration announced that the grant funds would be rescinded.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood pulled $1.2 billion in stimulus rail funds from Wisconsin and Ohio, because their new Republican governors didn’t want them. Thirteen other states will share the money for their high-speed trains. Walker said he now hopes Washington will focus on the “true needs” of Wisconsin and other states – and that’s quote, “fixing our crumbling roads and bridges.”

Walker said LaHood assured him the state won’t have to pay the federal government for what it spent on the new train. LaHood agreed to let Wisconsin keep two-million-dollars for upgrades on Amtrak’s current high-speed Hiawatha train from Milwaukee-to-Chicago. But the stimulus funding that was lost included $72-million for a new train shed and a maintenance base for the Hiawatha. Outgoing Governor Jim Doyle had said a separate $12-million-dollar grant for the Hiawatha line would also be in danger – but there was no word on that from Washington yesterday.

Gingrich, Cuccinelli Highlight Heritage Foundation President's Club meetings

2010-12-10T21:14:00.000-05:00

The RC Blog spent the last two days at The Heritage Foundation's President's Club meetings in Washington, D.C. and was (as we always are...) overly impressed with the work of Heritage's staff. President Dr. Ed Feulner announced to the 1,200+ record crowd that Heritage membership has now grown to over 700,000. There were a number of panel sessions during the afternoon, including the impact of ObamaCare and where the Conservative party goes next after the 2010 elections.

In the evening, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich gave the keynote address at the dinner. Gingrich continues to show why he is one of the party's most strategic thinkers. Truly a man of genius and intellect!!

The highlight of Day Two was the morning speech by Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli. The RC Blog has attended more than 15 Heritage President's Club meetings over the years and has never seen the membership audience respond to a non-keynote speech as they did this morning for Cuccinelli. He has captured the attention of leading Conservatives nationwide with his message of liberty.

I will post the videos of the President's Club speeches once Heritage posts them.

Catholic Church Elevates Wisconsin Site Where Nun Saw Virgin Mary In 1859

2010-12-08T23:48:00.000-05:00

The Roman Catholic Church on Wednesday designated a Wisconsin spot where an apparition of the Virgin Mary allegedly appeared three times to a Belgian-born nun in 1859 as the only one of its kind in the United States.

The Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help at Champion, just east of Green Bay near Lake Michigan, has long been a popular destination for the faithful. But it was only in the last two years that the Diocese of Green Bay undertook the official process to earn the distinction that now puts it in company with renowned holy apparition sites including Lourdes, France; Guadalupe, Mexico; and Fatima, Portugal.

Green Bay Bishop David Ricken approved the sightings as legitimate apparitions after a two-year study by a commission he appointed. Ricken announced the distinction at a special Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception at the shrine, where he read from a decree that stated the apparitions witnessed by Sister Adele Brise in 1859 “do exhibit the substance of supernatural character, and I do hereby approve these apparitions as worthy of belief (although not obligatory) by the Christian faithful.”

Brise was 28 at the time of the visions, and had immigrated to Wisconsin from Belgium with her family about four years earlier. Brise would recount that a lady dressed in dazzling white appeared to her and claimed to be the “Queen of Heaven who prays for the conversion of sinners,” according to information provided by the Green Bay diocese. The apparition asked Brise to do the same, and to gather children and teach them what they should know for salvation.

After receiving the apparitions, Brise established a Catholic school and a community of Franciscan women.

Such sites of confirmed apparition earn that designation only by a Catholic bishop’s decree. A spokesman for the Green Bay Diocese said there are only 11 other such sites worldwide, none in the United States.

(Source: Associated Press)

Further Proof that California is Going Crazy!

2010-12-07T23:30:00.000-05:00

Heard about this article on Mark Levin last night and couldn't believe the content. Is it any wonder that California is having significant fiscal and social problems! What a disaster on the Left Coast!!!!!

Oakland Soon will Issue Municipal ID Cards
By Cecily Burt
Oakland Tribune
11/24/2010

OAKLAND -- Oakland will soon be following in San Francisco's footsteps by offering a new municipal identification card to homeless people, immigrants and other residents who might have trouble obtaining a state identification card.

But Oakland's ID card will double as an ATM debit card (emphasis added), the first of its kind in the country. The ATM debit card can be used to buy groceries or goods and services wherever ATM cards are welcome, allowing people without bank accounts to avoid high check-cashing fees or walking around with large amounts of cash.

Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente has been trying to get an ID card system for Oakland residents since the state rejected efforts to issue drivers licenses to illegal immigrants in 2004.

The City Council voted in June 2009 to issue municipal identification cards and issued a request for proposals. On Nov. 9, the council voted to accept the bid of SF Mexico Services LLC to administer the program and issue the ID/debit cards at no cost to the city.

"I think we have a responsibility to provide local access and represent everyone," said De La Fuente, who along with Mayor-elect Jean Quan co-authored the ordinance last year. "We have to provide some way for people to identify themselves so that people don't get arrested. "... We have to move forward with the card and not delay further."

So far, the cities of San Francisco, New Haven, Conn., Trenton, N.J., and Washington, D.C., have municipal identification cards. None have a full ATM/debit feature, although Washington's card can be loaded with value to use on the Metro system, and New Haven's card can be loaded with up to $300 value that can be used at participating merchants and at parking meters.

City Clerk LaTonda Simmons said the group that studied the ID card issue and helped craft the request for proposals will meet again early next month to finalize the contract details and develop a timeline for implementation.

The company predicts it will issue about 30,000 cards a year, processed through five intake centers set up around the city, said Elias Enciso, director of business development for SF Mexico. The company will set up the infrastructure with community-based organizations to accept and process applications and issue the cards, as well as establish the banking relationship to support the cards. He said the program could be up and running within three months once there is a signed contract.

A group headed by Wilson Riles advocated for a local currency feature for Oakland's program. It is not included, but the feature could be added to the card at a later date if the city wants it, Enciso said.

The company already offers debit cards and it won the contract to issue ATM debit cards to youth working for the Los Angeles summer jobs program. This is its first ID card contract.

The cards can be replenished with cash or checks or even set up to receive direct deposits from the cardholder's job.

There is a setup fee: $15 for adults or $10 for seniors and youth, plus an extra $6.95 to add the debit card feature; a $2.95 reload fee for non-direct deposits; and a 99-cent monthly maintenance fee. Even so, the amounts are minuscule compared to hefty fees charged by check cashing stores. And cardholders can avoid ATM transaction fees by using the cash-back feature when shopping at grocery stores or other merchants.

SF Mexico will cover operational costs through the sale of the cards and the user fees will help sustain the growth of the company. But the firm isn't in it for the money, Enciso said.

"We are a social enterprise company, meaning that our main priority is to maximize social good to the community," Enciso said. "One of our principles is that businesses can provide financial services to underserved communities without price gouging."

Card holders are issued an account number and password, which they can use to obtain balance and transaction information via a toll-free phone number or online. They can view all their transactions, similar to a bank statement, for no charge.

To obtain a city ID card, applicants must provide one picture identification such as a driver's license, passport, green card or consular card. Applicants who don't have a driver's license need two pieces of identification such as a foreign driver's license, a Social Security card, a U.S. or foreign birth certificate, a military identification card or school identification.

Minors don't need photo ID, but they must have some sort of documentation either from a school or shelter.

Applicants must also prove residency by providing recent utility bills, tax bills, pay stub, jury summons or tax refund statement, among other items.

The municipal identification cards will supply the same type of information contained on a driver's license or state identification card, including name, address, date of birth, height, weight, eye and hair color and photograph. The card must be accepted as a valid form of identification at all city departments, including the police department.

Miguel Robles, founder of the Latino American Alliance for Immigration Rights, was behind the push to get San Francisco to launch a municipal ID card program in response to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in 2007.

Several people caught in the raids were deported because they had no state-issued identification, Robles said.

The cards offer some measure of security in that San Francisco police accept the cards as proof of residency and the cardholders are more comfortable reporting crimes, Robles said. Cardholders also get all the benefits of other San Francisco residents, such as free resident days at the San Francisco Zoo and coverage under the city's health care program.

"You can get one if you are here illegally, if you are a resident of the city and are paying taxes and living here and spending money here," Robles said, describing the San Francisco program. "I'm very excited to have the program now in Oakland, too."

Enciso agreed that the cards give residents a sense of security they would not otherwise have.

"It's in the absolute best interest of all Oakland residents, regardless of immigration status, that everyone has identification," Enciso said. "It increases safety. What we saw in New Haven is that reporting of crimes went up 22 percent, primarily because people had a form of ID."

The Federal Pay Freeze, In Context

2010-12-01T07:38:00.000-05:00

Philip Klein from American Spectator Blog provided the following analysis on the federal employee pay freeze announced on Monday morning:

Earlier this morning, I noted that President Obama's proposal to freeze the pay of federal employees (excluding the military) for two years wouldn't have much impact on the debt. Now we have more specifics. In his press conference, Obama claimed that the move would save the government $28 billion over five years. Taking that number at face value, that would represent a sixth-tenths of one percent reduction in the projected $4.52 trillion deficit over that same period (2011 through 2015). It would be the equivalent of a person who expects to rack up $10,000 of of credit card debt over the next five years touting the fact that he's found a way to reduce his expenses by $60 over that time period. In football terms, it would be like a kickoff return that gains about a half of a yard.

To demonstrate this visually, I put together a pie chart.

A Grateful Nation

2010-11-24T09:38:00.001-05:00

Courtesy of Newt and Callista Gingrich on Human Events.com:

The very first “thanksgiving” was celebrated in 1619, one year before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth by another group of English settlers. The event was held on the banks of the James River at what is now Berkeley Plantation, the birthplace of Benjamin Harrison, signer of the Declaration of Independence and father of the ninth President of the United States, William Henry.

Most Americans, however, remember that the Thanksgiving Day tradition was modeled after the 1621 event in Plymouth, Massachusetts where fifty Pilgrims and ninety Wampanoag Indians feasted for three days. The Pilgrims were indeed thankful for friendship and a bountiful harvest. In the previous year, half of the Pilgrims had starved to death. A Patuxet Indian named Squanto came to their rescue helping them to survive in the New World.

Throughout our history, Americans were called hundreds of times by their leaders to days of fasting and prayer and subsequent days of thanksgiving often by local officials and governors.

The first Thanksgiving Proclamation was issued by the Governing council of Charlestown, Massachusetts on June 20, 1676. The council wanted to offer thanks for a series of victories in the ongoing “War with the Heathen Natives” setting apart the 29th of June as a “day of Solemn Thanksgiving and praise to God for such his Goodness and Favor.”

But it was President George Washington at the request of the Congress, who on October 3, 1789 issued the first national thanksgiving day proclamation from New York City. Setting aside November 26, the proclamation stated that "our duty as a people, with devout reverence and affectionate gratitude, to acknowledge our many and great obligations to Almighty God and to implore Him to continue and confirm the blessings we experience."

Washington issued his second thanksgiving day proclamation in 1795. Presidents Adams, Jefferson and Madison all issued proclamation calling for a day of Thanksgiving.

But few Americans gathering this week with family and friends for the feast know about the woman most credited with making Thanksgiving Day a national holiday.

Born Sarah J. Buell on October 24, 1788, in Newport, New Hampshire, it was Sarah Josepha Hale’s persistent petitions that brought about the holiday. She sent hundreds of letters to politicians including five presidents imploring them to institute a national day of thanksgiving.

Buell became one of the most influential women in the United States as the editor of the most widely circulated women’s magazine called Godey’s Lady’s Book. She also penned “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” the most-well-known poem in American history.

But it was not until 1863, when Abraham Lincoln received her letter in the midst of the Civil War that the New England tradition would become a national one. “If every state would join in Thanksgiving,” she wrote, “Would it not be a renewed pledge of love and loyalty to the Constitution?” Lincoln agreed.

He set apart the last Thursday of November as a day of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” He called upon Americans “that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.”

Lincoln would issue three more thanksgiving proclamations from the White House. Subsequent presidents issued similar proclamations but the states chose different days for the thanksgiving observance. It was not until 1934 that Franklin Delano Rooseveltsaid that to “set aside in the autumn of each year a day on which to give thanks to Almighty God for the blessings of life is a wise and reverent custom, long cherished by our people.” In 1941, the Congress made the Third Thursday of November an official national holiday.

Again and again even in our darkest days, our leaders have called upon us to give thanks to our Creator for our many blessings. This year was a difficult year for so many Americans who are out of work or have suffered economic hardship. Nevertheless, we are a nation that has always persevered through hardship and we will again. Because even when challenged we have always been a grateful nation. So with gratitude, it is fitting that we should reflect upon what is good and what God has given us. It is in that spirit that Callista and I along with our entire team wish you and your loved ones a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

USPS to Unveil New Reagan Centennial Stamp on December 13

2010-11-24T07:43:00.000-05:00

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation announced yesterday that on Monday, December 13, the U.S. Postal Service will unveil the new Ronald Reagan centennial postage stamp. The event will take place at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Ca. Here is the info.:

On Monday, December 13, 2010, the United States Postal Service is honoring President Ronald Reagan with a Centennial Postage Stamp. At this event, the artwork for the stamp will be unveiled. James C. Miller, III, a member of the USPS Board of Governors, will speak at this event on behalf of the Postal Service. As the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Governor Miller was a member of the President’s cabinet and a member of the National Security Council from 1985-1988. Before that he served as Chairman of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission from 1981-1985.

The National Anthem for this program will be performed by Ms. Jordan Pruitt, a member of the Ronald Reagan Centennial National Youth Committee. Jordan Pruitt, 19, released her debut album in 2006, entitled “No Ordinary Girl.” She has been on tour with the Cheetah Girls, Vanessa Hudgens, “High School Musical: The Concert,” the Jonas Brothers and many others.

This is the third Ronald Reagan stamp. The first was issued by the Postal Service following the President’s death and was a 37 cent stamp. Following a rate increase, the Postal Service re-issued the stamp with a 39 cent denomination.

This event is free to attend, however reservations are required, click here to make reservations. For any questions, please call 805-522-2977.

Dayton Basketball Ranked No. 1 In Latest RPI (Not a Misprint!)

2010-11-22T10:42:00.000-05:00

I know it means absolutely nothing in terms of true national ranking (especially on November 21), but following Saturday night's huge 16-point-deficit OT road victory for the Dayton Flyers at Ole' Miss, the team finds itself atop the nation's men's college basketball RPI rankings. By January, they'll be sure to settle back in the 25-40 range, but it sure is nice to see at No. 1 ranking at any time of the year. Go Flyers!

NY Bishop Dolan Named President of U.S. Bishops

2010-11-17T13:57:00.000-05:00

Great news coming out of this week's fall meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) with the upset election of N.Y. Archbishop Timothy Dolan as President of the USCCB. Bishop Dolan is a staunch Conservative who is not afraid to tackle the tough issues facing the Church and society at large.

Here's a new interview with Bishop Dolan on his new appointment conducted by Tim Drake at the National Catholic Register:

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan was elected the new president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Tuesday, Nov. 16. The election of Archbishop Dolan broke from precedent that held that the vice president of the bishops’ conference, in this case Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas, would succeed the outgoing president, in this case Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, in a vote that would be more of a formality. Archbishop Dolan addressed questions from the media gathered there shortly after his election.

What would be your chief priorities as president of the conference, in the Church and society?

Candidly, I haven’t had time to think about it. Frankly, I was surprised by the election of the bishops. I have immense regard for my predecessor, Cardinal Francis George.

I think what I can safely say is that probably my major priority would be to continue, with all the vigor that I can muster, what’s already been put in place. It’s not like — thanks be to God — we’re in crisis. Things are going well.

Can you address health-care and the possible funding of abortion in the health-care reform bill?

I am highly appreciative of the summary that Cardinal Francis George gave yesterday, which was downright eloquent. I admired the way he handled it.

The bishops of the U.S. are in somewhat of a delicate position in that we have been promoting comprehensive health care, but it wasn’t comprehensive, in that a precious part of those deserving care — those being unborn babies — weren’t receiving it. The bishops were cogent in expressing that.

Cardinal George was so articulate — as was Pope John Paul II — in telling us that although we’re political in the best sense of the word, we’re not partisan. The bishops of the U.S. are not partisan; we are pastors and teachers.

Did you speak with Bishop Kicanas after the election?

I did. I thanked him for his service and told him I held him in high regard.

He told me, “I’m with you all the way.” My one regret is that I’ll have to give up leadership of Catholic Relief Services.

Can you comment on the unprecedented nature of your election, and if there was any outside pressure on the bishops for whom to elect?

Bishop John Carberry was vice president and not elected president. This seems to be somewhat of a surprise.

When I received a letter that my brother bishops had nominated me, I was surprised. I don’t know how to interpret it. It was hardly a landslide election. I can remember three years ago, when Bishop Kicanas beat me for the vice president slot by one vote.

I take it that the bishops don’t like the idea of anyone being a shoo-in.

You presume that we’re sitting around thinking about these things. Most bishops are laudably absorbed in the activities of their own dioceses. When they get here, they take the election seriously.

As to an outside campaign, that wouldn’t be anything new. There’s always been some controversy surrounding the elections. I’ve felt the heel of blog attacks. The bishops bristle if they feel there’s any undue pressure from the outside.

You might interpret this as the bishops are tired of short and skinny presidents.

Robert George has said that it’s a signal from the bishops that they wanted a strong and assertive moral witness, more than they were looking for the dialogue and mediation coming out of the [late Chicago Cardinal Joseph] Bernardin approach.

Robby George is one of my heroes. I don’t know. When you speak about the leadership of bishops, you speak about style.

Bishop Kicanas would be as committed to the ideals of our Catholic faith as I would be. George is bringing up that there is a difference in style.

When I came to New York, I was interpreted quite the opposite — as a congenial and conciliatory kind of guy. You can’t win. I mean it when I say that we don’t sit around thinking about it.

Maybe what George was getting at is that there are many issues that Catholic social teaching can be a witness on. Is this about which issues you’re going to press on? Are the bishops signaling an interest in issues of life, abortion and marriage?

We bishops would bristle at the characterization that there are some bishops who tend to be more pro-life and family issues while others tend to the social-justice issues.

I don’t think that characterization would apply to Bishop Kicanas and myself. I once invited him to speak to one of our town meetings. He addressed pro-life, education, and marriage and family. I don’t find that kind of caricaturing to be accurate.

Are there other bishops who you view as a role model?

Bishop Edwin O’Hara, who I wrote my dissertation on. He was an immensely effective bishop. I’m wearing the pectoral cross of Cardinal John O’Connor. He has been a hero of mine, and my appreciation of him has only grown. He had a pastoral heart and sidewalk savviness, but was as cogent and compelling in preaching faith and morals as anyone.

Register senior writer Tim Drake filed this report from Baltimore

Happy Veterans Day 2010!

2010-11-10T23:28:00.001-05:00

Back by popular demand from last year's post...

Marine Corps Birthday Celebrates 235 years of "The Few, The Proud"

2010-11-10T11:25:00.000-05:00

"The Few, the Proud": So says the motto of the U.S. Marine Corps, and so it is. The Marines are the smallest branch of the U.S. armed forces, but their reputation outmatches their size. Today, the marines celebrate their 235th anniversary, born before the country was in 1775.

"The Marines I have seen around the world have the cleanest bodies, the filthiest minds, the highest morale, and the lowest morals of any group of animals I have ever seen. Thank God for the United States Marine Corps!" Eleanor Roosevelt once said.

Bush's "Decision Points" Hits the Streets

2010-11-09T21:10:00.000-05:00

Former President George W. Bush released his new book titled "Decision Points" today. The book recounts the critical decisions of his presidency and personal life.

Decision Points is the extraordinary memoir of America’s 43rd president. Shattering the conventions of political autobiography, President Bush offers a strikingly candid journey through the defining decisions of his life.

In gripping, never-before-heard detail, President Bush brings readers inside the Texas Governor’s Mansion on the night of the hotly contested 2000 election; aboard Air Force One on 9/11, in the hours after America’s most devastating attack since Pearl Harbor; at the head of the table in the Situation Room in the moments before launching the war in Iraq; and behind the Oval Office desk for his historic and controversial decisions on the financial crisis, Hurricane Katrina, Afghanistan, Iran, and other issues that have shaped the first decade of the 21st century.

President Bush writes honestly and directly about his flaws and mistakes, as well as his accomplishments reforming education, treating HIV/AIDS in Africa, and safeguarding the country amid chilling warnings of additional terrorist attacks. He also offers intimate new details on his decision to quit drinking, discovery of faith, and relationship with his family.

A groundbreaking new brand of memoir, Decision Points will captivate supporters, surprise critics, and change perspectives on one of the most consequential eras in American history – and the man at the center of events.

Although I did not agree with everything Bush did (skyrocketing budgets, nominating Miers to S.C., and endorsing Spector over Toomey in 2004 Pa. Senate primary, etc.), I have great respect and admiration for the man himself. He kept our country safe during a very dangerous time and I felt like we were led by a man with determination and resolve. He has shown nothing but class since leaving office in January 2009 by staying out of politics and not taking shots at President Obama. Wish I could say the same for former Presidents Carter and Clinton.

Keith Olbermann Suspended from MSNBC

2010-11-05T14:19:00.000-04:00

Keith Olbermann has been suspended indefinitely without pay from MSNBC for making donations to three Democrats in violation of NBC's ethics policy.

"I became aware of Keith's political contributions late last night," Phil Griffin, President of MSNBC, said in a statement. "Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay."

Olbermann, who does not hide his liberal views, has acknowledged donations of $2,400 each to Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway and Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords during this election cycle.

NBC's ethics policy generally bars political activity, including contributions, without the approval of the president of NBC News, Steve Capus, according to a 2007 story on MSNBC.com.

"Anyone working for NBC News who takes part in civic or other outside activities may find that these activities jeopardize his or her standing as an impartial journalist because they may create the appearance of a conflict of interest," it says. "Such activities may include participation in or contributions to political campaigns or groups that espouse controversial positions. You should report any such potential conflicts in advance to, and obtain prior approval of, the President of NBC News or his designee."

In a statement released before the suspension as announced, Olbermann said: "I did not privately or publicly encourage anyone else to donate to these campaigns, nor to any others in this election or any previous ones, nor have I previously donated to any political campaign at any level."

The candidates Olbermann donated to had mixed results. Conway lost his race to Tea Party-backed Republican Rand Paul, but both Grijalva and Giffords lead in tight races that CBS News has not yet projected. All three appeared on Olbermann's show, and Grijalva has appeared multiple times.

Pence Leaves House Leadership Post; Sets Sights on Higher Office

2010-11-04T11:24:00.000-04:00

RC Blog's favorite member of Congress, Mike Pence, resigned from his leadership role in the House of Representatives yesterday. We are ready to start the "Pence in 2012" chant!! Here's the article from the Indianapolis Star:

After helping Republicans take the House, Indiana Rep. Mike Pence plans to step down as the head of the House GOP conference, presumably to prepare for potential presidential or gubernatorial bid in 2012.

"Now that we have restored a Republican majority to the House of Representatives and I have fulfilled my commitment to the Republican Conference, my family and I have begun to look to the future," Pence said in a statement to colleagues this morning.

"As we consider new opportunities to serve Indiana and our nation in the years ahead, I have come to realize that it may not be possible to complete an entire term as conference chairman. As such, I think it would be more appropriate for me to step aside now, especially since there are other talented men and women in our Conference who could do the job just as well or better."

The Columbus Republican declined to say what his plans are, but he has been talked about as a potential presidential and gubernatorial candidate.

Pence was the top choice in a presidential straw poll of conservatives attending the Family Research Council's Values Voter Summit in September.

Gov. Mitch Daniels, who cannot seek re-election in 2012, has also left open the possibility of running for president.

What Yesterday Was All About...

2010-11-03T11:00:00.001-04:00

This video produced by The Heritage Foundation sums up why Americans yesterday stood up and cast their votes to remove those looking to destroy America as she was designed to be...

Scott Walker - Wisconsin's Next Governor!

2010-11-02T22:21:00.000-04:00

Fox News has just announced that it projects Scott Walker as the winner in the Wisconsin governor's race. He's up by nearly 20 points. RC Blog is a proud supporter for Walker and wish him the best as he moves on to Madison! Scott's a future national star!!

Goodbye Blanche!

2010-11-02T20:32:00.000-04:00

Arkansas gets rid of Blanche Lincoln in the Senate where she was a critical vote in the passage of ObamaCare. Congrats to John Boozman for defeating her!

Rubio Rolls!

2010-11-02T20:30:00.000-04:00

Looks like Marco Rubio will smoke Charlie Crist for the Florida Senate seat.

Keith Fimian with a decent lead (2,200 votes) over Gerry Connolly in the Virginia 11th House District race.

Interesting exit poll statistic -- women were +13 for Obama in 2008; today, there is no gender gap between R's and D's.

Early Results In Senate Races...

2010-11-02T19:07:00.000-04:00

Rand Paul (KY) - Winner!
Dan Coats (IN) - Winner!

Rain Is Good News for Republicans

2010-11-02T15:07:00.001-04:00

My wife finally has to admit I was right. She thought I was stereotyping Dems as lazy when I would pray for rain on Election Day each year as a way to keep the Libs at home and away from the ballot box. Now I have the proof (thanks to weather.com)! I can't help it if they're lazy....

You Didn't Vote? Don't Blame it on the Weather
by Tim Ballisty, Editorial Meteorologist

Does weather affect voter turnout?

When election day rolls around in November, that question seemingly always enters the political discussion.

Pundits spout out their beliefs - "Democrats are loving the rain in Dixie!" or "Republicans are happy to see that there's snow in the forecast for New England!"

But again, does weather truly act as a barrier between the voter and the voting booth?

In 2007, researchers actually got down to business and sought out an answer to this very question.

The study was written by political scientists Brad T. Gomez of the University of Georgia, Thomas G. Hansford of the University of California, Merced, and George A. Krause of the University of Pittsburgh.

The researchers analyzed the affects of precipitation and temperature on voter turnout in more than 3,000 U.S. counties for 14 U.S. presidential elections from 1948 - 2000, which they say is the most comprehensive test of the weather-turnout thesis ever done.

The evidence they uncovered does indeed support the claim; rain and/or snow significantly decreases the level of voter turnout within a county.

Not only does weather affect turnout but it provides a noticeable bump for Republicans. The study found that foul weather conditions are positively related to Republican Party vote share in presidential elections.

Let's dig into some of the numbers and find out how much rain and/or snow can add some intrigue into the voting returns.

Each one inch increase in rain above its Election Day average for a typical county yields a gain of 2.5% of Republican vote share.

Every one inch increase in rain above its Election Day average yields a decline in voter turnout by just slightly 1%.

Each one inch of snowfall above its Election Day average results in a gain of 0.60% in the Republican vote share.

Each one inch of snowfall above its Election Day average reduces voter turnout by nearly 0.5%.

Final RC Blog Predictions for Election Day 2010

2010-11-02T11:48:00.000-04:00

House +56, Senate +8, Governors +7

Heritage Releases "Solutions for America"

2010-11-02T11:21:00.000-04:00

Compiled by a team of Heritage experts, Solutions for America identifies the nature and scope of our most pressing problems in 23 discrete policy areas, and recommends 128 specific policy prescriptions for Congress to consider. Some of the recommendations are groundbreaking. Others are familiar. Some are being debated right now. All have one thing in common: They would return power to the people. And, collectively, they will transform America, setting her back on the track to prosperity and greatness.

Perilous times necessitate bold action. America is at a tipping point. To continue on the current path of ever-expanding central government will plunge us into a statist abyss of lost liberties, vanishing opportunity and dying prospects of a better tomorrow. But our nation can just as well correct course, as she has so often in the past.

Americans by the millions have begun the process, rallying around the vision of the Founders. The policies articulated in Solutions for America are calculated to make that vision a reality, to build an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish anew.

To download a copy of Solutions for America, click here.

RC Blog Upset Special of the Day...

2010-11-02T11:17:00.000-04:00

RC Blog predicts that senior House incumbent Jim Oberstar (D-MN) will lose to Republican challenger Chris Cravaack in the Minnesota 8th District House race. Cravaack has run an excellent campaign and Oberstar has been showing his age (76) as of late. Cravaack seems to be the right person at the right place at the right time to unseat Oberstar. This would be a major leadership blow the Dems...

Gallup: Republicans Appear Poised to Win Big on Tuesday

2010-11-01T12:05:00.000-04:00

The final USA Today/Gallup measure of Americans' voting intentions for Congress shows Republicans continuing to hold a substantial lead over Democrats among likely voters, a lead large enough to suggest that regardless of turnout, the Republicans will win more than the 40 seats needed to give them the majority in the U.S. House.

The results are from Gallup's Oct. 28-31 survey of 1,539 likely voters. It finds 52% to 55% of likely voters preferring the Republican candidate and 40% to 42% for the Democratic candidate on the national generic ballot -- depending on turnout assumptions. Gallup's analysis of several indicators of voter turnout from the weekend poll suggests turnout will be slightly higher than in recent years, at 45%. This would give the Republicans a 55% to 40% lead on the generic ballot, with 5% undecided.

Click here for all the polling details.

Sen. Burris Misnames Sen. Feingold as "Ralph Feinberg"

2010-10-29T11:57:00.001-04:00

This was my favorite political story of the week from thehill.com, in a crazy, busy week leading up to Election Day on Tuesday:

Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) misidentified the name of one of his Senate colleagues with whom Burris has been working for the better part of 22 months.

Burris misnamed Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), according to a report in the Chicago Tribune, calling the senator from his neighboring state "Ralph Feinberg" instead.

"We've had a great relationship," Burris told the Tribune, in a profile piece detailing Burris's closing days in office.

The Illnois Democrat was appointed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), who had allegedly sought money or favors in exchange for the appointment. The winner of the general election between Rep. Mark Kirk (R) and Democrat Alexi Giannoulias in Illinois will take Burris's seat shortly after Nov. 2.

Burris said he had no regrets about the controversial circumstances under which he was named senator.

"Not a question, not a question about it," Burris said when asked if he had any doubts. "The right thing to do was get representation for the people of Illinois. He had the authority. He was the governor. And that was it."

Rove in WSJ: Signs of the Democratic Apocalypse

2010-10-28T11:21:00.000-04:00

From this morning's Wall St. Journal:

Signs of the Democratic Apocalypse
By Karl Rove

Next Tuesday Democrats will receive a crushing rebuke. More to the point, voters will be delivering a verdict on the first two years of the Obama administration.

Midterm elections are almost always unpleasant experiences for the White House, especially when the economy is weak. But key races that should have been safe for the party in power demonstrate the extent to which President Obama and his policies have nationalized the election.

In Nevada, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has a huge war chest in a state Mr. Obama won in 2008 by 12 points. Mr. Reid trails Sharron Angle by four points in the latest Rasmussen poll.

In West Virginia, Joe Manchin, a popular Democratic governor, is running for the Senate, yet he lags behind John Raese by two points in the Oct. 23 Fox News Poll, largely because of Mr. Obama's 30% approval rating in the state. Mr. Manchin is running away from the president, telling Fox News that Mr. Obama is "dead wrong on cap and trade," and that he would not have supported ObamaCare had he known everything that was in the bill.

Or take the Illinois Senate seat held by Mr. Obama before he was elected president. It should be safely Democratic. Instead, Republican Congressman Mark Kirk has led Illinois Treasurer and Obama basketball buddy Alexi Giannoulias in eight of the 10 polls taken this month. It will be a terrible embarrassment if the president's former Senate seat flips.

Elsewhere, some powerful Senate Democrats were either forced out by popular Republican challengers (North Dakota and Indiana) or they trail badly because their races became nationalized over the Obama agenda (Arkansas, Missouri and Wisconsin).

One of the more interesting Senate races is in Ohio, where Rob Portman, a former trade negotiator and budget director for George W. Bush, leads Democratic Lt. Governor Lee Fisher by an average of 19 points in a state Mr. Obama carried by four points.

Ohio is no longer friendly Obama territory. An August survey by Public Policy Polling reported that Ohioans would prefer George W. Bush in the White House today rather than Mr. Obama by 50% to 42%. Mr. Portman campaigns relentlessly on jobs, presenting a principled, optimistic case that conservative policies mean economic growth. It's a winning strategy.

Then there are senior House Democrats who normally don't draw more than token opposition. This year, some are terminal and others in jeopardy.

Nine-term Congressman Earl Pomeroy (North Dakota) and 13-termer Paul Kanjorski (Pennsylvania) will both go down. Three House committee chairmen—John Spratt (South Carolina), Ike Skelton (Missouri) and Jim Oberstar (Minnesota)—are trying to hold off late-charging challengers. Even the dean of the House, Michigan's 27-term Congressman John Dingell, is having to fend off a spirited challenge by cardiologist Rob Steele.

Then there's House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, squaring off against Republican Sean Bielat, a Marine and businessman, in Massachusetts. In 2008, Mr. Obama carried his district by 29 points, but Mr. Frank is now stuck at 46% support in a recent poll commissioned by the Boston Globe. Anything less than 50% is a dangerous place for an entrenched incumbent. Mr. Bielat has campaigned so effectively he's forced the acerbic, high-strung Mr. Frank to confess he'd been wrong to oppose reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the years before their spectacular collapse.

While Mr. Frank and several other senior Democrats may hang on, the fact that they even face tough races shows how much trouble the Democrats are in.

Adding to Democratic problems, the record GOP turnout in this year's primaries points to higher turnout next week. Four years ago, 82 million people voted in the midterms. This year I estimate 89 million to 91 million Americans may cast a ballot, based on voting-eligible population statistics calculated by George Mason University's Michael McDonald. Could there be a late surge in Democratic enthusiasm? The latest Pew poll, from Oct. 21, reports that 64% of Republicans say they have given a lot of thought to the election, while only 49% of Democrats have. This intensity edge is staggering, larger even than the GOP's 12-point lead in 1994.

In recent days, Mr. Obama screamed defiantly to Democratic rallies that Republicans have to "sit in the back," and he told a Latino radio audience that it's time to "punish our enemies and . . . reward our friends." That may be the president's idea of how to appeal to Americans' better instincts. Next Tuesday night we'll see how badly wrong he is.

Virginian-Pilot: Meet Ken Cuccinelli - Virginia's Rising Star of the Right

2010-10-26T21:25:00.001-04:00

Nice piece on Va. AG Ken Cuccinelli in Sunday's Virginian-Pilot newspaper out of Hampton Roads...

By Julian Walker
The Virginian-Pilot
October 24, 2010

Conservative Wall Street Journal columnist Stephen Moore was delivering a luncheon address to a group of like-minded New Jersey voters in August when something unexpected happened. Moore asked audience members to name their preferred presidential candidate in 2012. Several offered Ken Cuccinelli's name.

"I was surprised, not because I don't think a lot of Ken," he said. "I was surprised people knew Ken."

The fact that Garden State voters know Cuccinelli well enough to mention him in presidential speculation illustrates the rapid ascent of Virginia's hard-charging attorney general.

In less than a decade, he's gone from an insurgent Republican candidate for state Senate to winning statewide office in a landslide.

And in a bit of fortuitous timing, Cuccinelli, 42, now finds his limited-government, anti-tax message resonating with swaths of an electorate anxious about the fate of the nation and their own livelihoods amid an unstable economy.

It helps that his rhetoric manifests itself in activism - he's sued to challenge the federal health care overhaul and to investigate a climate-change scientist, and he's issued legal opinions targeting immigration, abortion and gay rights.

He promised during last year's campaign to "fight with Washington," and he's delivering. To Hampton Roads Tea Party founder Karen Miner Hurd, Cuccinelli is refreshing precisely because he isn't a typical politician and his brand of no-nonsense pragmatism doesn't neatly "fit into the paradigm of conservatives."

Hurd first met Cuccinelli at a political event when he was running for attorney general and was impressed by his "genuine" demeanor and his fondness for the tea party movement.

Apparently, the feeling is mutual.

Cuccinelli was the darling of the recent statewide tea party convention, drawing a sustained standing ovation.

It's that likability, coupled with his policy ideas, that makes opponents on the left so leery of Cuccinelli.

Although foes have derisively questioned Cuccinelli's sanity, dubbing him "Kookinelli," Democratic blogger Vivian Paige is convinced that dismissing him is folly.

"The man is smart, no doubt about it," she said, praising his razor-sharp recall of a meeting between the two, and his disarming public comportment.

"That's what makes him so dangerous," Paige added. "People think he's crazy, but he's not."

A New Jersey native raised Roman Catholic, Cuccinelli has called Northern Virginia home since he was a child.

He still lives there with his wife, Teiro, and seven children. After the 2009 election, the family moved from Fairfax County to Prince William County rather than Richmond, where his job is based, so their eldest daughter wouldn't have to leave her Catholic school. His younger children are home-schooled.

An engineering graduate and lawyer specializing in business and intellectual property, he launched his political career in Fairfax in 2002 with a state Senate primary challenge against Mike Thompson.

His conservative principles helped sway former state Del. Dick Black to support him.

"He seemed to be a person whose life was in order," Black said, recalling one of his first meetings with Cuccinelli. Black added that he also was moved by Cuccinelli's "very strong" moral and ethical values, including his opposition to abortion and to a tax referendum on the ballot at the time.

With the aid of Black's political operation and others in the pro-life, pro-gun, home school movement, Cuccinelli won.

Coalition-building has long been a Cuccinelli strength, according to his former legislative aide, Eve Marie Barner Gleason, because he will "never overlook a voting bloc."

An example of that came last year when Cuccinelli attended a forum hosted by the NAACP in Richmond and spoke to an audience not filled with GOP sympathizers. He won points with the crowd when the moderator told them he was the first candidate to accept an invitation to the forum, an event his Democratic opponent didn't attend.

"What Ken has always done that's been very effective in all his races is, when he can't put together 50 percent of the vote for him, he's very good about putting together a coalition of 50 percent against his opponents," observed blogger Ben Tribbett, a frequent critic of Cuccinelli.

That strategy has kept him in office and helped him survive a tight 2007 re-election campaign for state Senate that he won by about 100 votes. And it's what has his supporters believing Cuccinelli is destined for higher office.

"Ken Cuccinelli... is on the front lines, and people know if this guy is in the White House, he'd be undoing the Obama agenda so fast, people's head would spin," gushed Rick Shaftan, a political consultant who has worked on past Cuccinelli races.

A conundrum with Cuccinelli is how to evaluate a man who seems so comfortable bucking the establishment. Is he pursuing his culture war clashes out of principle or in quest of personal gain? And what effect is he having on Virginia?

At a minimum, he brings increased attention to the state, though opinions differ on whether it's positive.

Though a spokesman, Cuccinelli declined to be interviewed, but he did respond to e-mailed questions.

He noted that he'd been upfront with voters about his intention to oppose certain federal initiatives such as health care.

"Unfortunately," he wrote, "we have a federal government that is giving us more opportunities than I would appreciate having."

His response to questions about his actions has been consistent: He cites a duty "to defend the law and the U.S. and Virginia constitutions."

That philosophy is never more evident than when he discusses the health care lawsuit.

It is "the most important thing I will do as attorney general," he said, characterizing it as a fight for personal liberty against an overreaching government trying to force people to buy health insurance.

That case has helped endear Cuccinelli to people attracted to the tea party message of scaling back government.

In him they see a champion unafraid to articulate their views from a bully pulpit and rail against a Democratic president and Congress they believe have spent recklessly on bailouts and stimulus packages without fixing the economy.

Less charmed is Steve Shannon, the attorney and former state delegate Cuccinelli trounced in last year's election. He views Cuccinelli as a calculating politician who invokes the law to obscure his unorthodox views.

As proof, he points to Cuccinelli's decision not to support a lawsuit brought by the father of a Marine killed in Iraq against an anti-gay pastor who organizes pickets of military funerals.

Shannon argues that the attorney general was backing up a "raging homophobe," not protecting free-speech rights as he claimed, and points to Cuccinelli's statement last year that homosexual acts are "intrinsically wrong."

Staying out of the lawsuit placed Cuccinelli in the minority among state attorneys general - 48 others backed it. (The other who didn't support the suit was Maine Democrat Janet Mills.) And it drew outrage from some conservatives who wanted Cuccinelli to defend fallen military members.

Through a spokesman, Cuccinelli called the protests "absolutely vile and despicable." But he said Virginia already has a law that balances free speech rights while stopping the disruption of funerals.

That's vintage Cuccinelli. He holds firm to his belief in a strict reading of the law - in that case, the First Amendment - regardless of scorn or dissent.

Another issue that's drawn strong reaction is a fraud investigation targeting the research of a climate change scientist formerly at the University of Virginia.

Though Cuccinelli, who is a skeptic on global warming, may have enhanced his stature with conservatives in the process, one critic worries his actions could hurt the state.

Going after the university for research records hurts Virginia's ability to recruit great scientists, said Terry McAuliffe, a onetime and perhaps future Democratic candidate for governor.

"People in the scientific community are aware of what's going on here," he added. "You just don't go out and sue scientists.... That doesn't do anything to create jobs."

Cuccinelli rejects the "maverick" label, but it's clear his agenda isn't always in lockstep with Gov. Bob McDonnell or the governor's heir apparent, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, both fellow Republicans.

That was evident weeks after taking office, when Cuccinelli gave legal advice to colleges and universities that they lack the authority to include sexual orientation in non-discrimination policies.

Cuccinelli defends that guidance as a reminder to those schools "that their powers are limited" by the state constitution and code and "no matter how well-intentioned their efforts, they may not exceed those limits."

His position didn't differ dramatically from McDonnell's stance on the issue when he was Virginia's attorney general. But the controversy over Cuccinelli's advice mushroomed enough that the governor produced an executive directive - an edict lacking the force of law - protecting sexual orientation, to quell the controversy.

There, too, lies some of Cuccinelli's appeal: Through a combination of circumstance and choice, he has emerged as a formidable outsider, even among Republicans, in a moment of anti-establishment fervor.

McDonnell, for his part, says the two work together well and Cuccinelli's office provides good legal service to the state.

As far as the cases Cuccinelli has taken on, McDonnell said, "He's got now a Congress and an administration that has clearly governed to the left of center, and has passed new laws and enacted new policies that many of us here in Virginia have great concerns about whether they're, one, good policies, and number two, whether they are proper for the federal government to be involved in. I didn't really have that as much when I was attorney general with a Republican administration.... I think he's just doing his job to represent the interests of the state."

Already there are hints Cuccinelli has set his sights on an office beyond the one he occupies.

He publicly maintains his plan is to seek re-election in 2013, but he hasn't ruled out running for another post. There is a governor's race that same year, and U.S. Senate races loom for Democrats Jim Webb in 2012 and Mark Warner in 2014.

Political tongues wagged when Cuccinelli agreed to stump for a GOP candidate in Iowa - home to the first nominating contest in presidential election cycles.

And his use of the health care lawsuit in a fundraising appeal to supporters, as well as the recent announcement that he's assembled a network of campaign volunteers across the state, only fueled the speculation.

He is a tireless campaigner who puts in face time at GOP events, and communicates with the faithful through dispatches of his long-running Cuccinelli Compass, an e-mail newsletter he pens personally, sometimes in the wee hours.

"I'm a target, so I've got to act like one," Cuccinelli told The Washington Post. "Which just means work hard. Don't wait for the election."

"He's going places. He's either going to be president or on the Supreme Court in 10 years. One or the other," predicted Shaftan, the political consultant. "I think the left is very afraid of him, as they should be."

Julian Walker, (804) 697-1564, julian.walker@pilotonline.com

Walker Gets Journal-Sentinel Endorsement In Race for Wisconsin Governor

2010-10-25T08:57:00.000-04:00

Wow! The same paper that has attacked Scott Walker for the past half a decade has given him its endorsement in the race for governor in Wisconsin. This has to be the final nail in the coffin for Tom Barrett...

Walker offers toughness, experience

Scott Walker has said repeatedly during his campaign for governor that he will develop strategies to create 250,000 new jobs during his first term.

It's a big promise - one that has been derided by his critics. But for the sake of Wisconsin, Walker had better be right.

We have watched Walker and his opponent, Tom Barrett, for years. Both are decent, honest, principled public servants. If a ledger existed, it would no doubt show that we've agreed with Barrett more often than with Walker.

But in a time of economic peril and at a time when government must be reformed, it's time to throw away the playbook.

We recommend Scott Walker to be Wisconsin's next governor.

This election comes as Wisconsin reels from a recession that the experts tell us is over but that still feels very painful.

Systemic deficiencies exist in how the state is run and in how state services are funded.

Deep fissures exist in the foundation upon which businesses create jobs and pay taxes.

Average residents worry whether there is a viable future for them in Wisconsin. Property taxes unduly burden them, public education fails too many of their children and higher education is in danger of becoming unaffordable.

Both candidates for governor acknowledge this landscape, but one is better equipped to move Wisconsin forward because he has been tested in the kind of crucible that mimics the governor's job in this environment. That is Walker.

Relevant experience is the argument we made when we recommended Walker over Mark Neumann in the Republican primary in September. It holds in his general election race against the Democratic candidate, Barrett.

And there is this: Democrats have held the governorship and two legislative houses and have failed to demonstrate they could collaborate even among themselves to address problems that don't even rise to the level of systemic and structural.

Walker was elected Milwaukee's County executive in 2002 amid a pension scandal that drove his predecessor and others from office, and he manages an institution with financial travails and other dynamics that mirror the state's:

Structural deficits promising future implosion.

A constant tension between what is necessary and what is affordable.

The need to exact concessions from public employee unions.

An intransigent legislative body, in many ways in thrall to these interests.

This is the Milwaukee County that Walker inherited. But it is also an apt description of the state he seeks to lead.

There can be no more kicking the can down the Wisconsin road. If there is one thing Walker has shown in his tenure as county executive, it is an abiding intolerance for the failures of business as usual.

Walker's habit of upending the status quo has been a disquieting reality for a County Board with a majority that obstructs progress as much as it acts as a check on the county executive. Walker's approach has put public employee unions on notice that, though no one diminishes the value of the members' work, they cannot be exempt from the economic distress that plagues the taxpayers who pay their salaries.

The persisting dysfunction in Milwaukee County is not of Walker's making and arguably - with tight-fisted stewardship - is better than it was before he took office.

Still, Walker's record as county executive is not unblemished.

The county's Mental Health Complex has been so badly managed under his watch that vulnerable people have been needlessly victimized. His budgets have failed to meet the need, even as overtime salaries for some complex employees boggle the imagination. The Milwaukee County Transit System has suffered route cuts and fare hikes, a victim to diminished county revenues and lack of vision. The state took over what state officials said were badly managed public assistance programs - though county officials said those programs simply were underfunded by the state.

We differ with Walker on some of the stances he's taken during this election. Stopping the fast train between Milwaukee and Madison reflects the kind of fiscal conservatism for which he is known, but it still is shortsighted.

Also of concern was his answer to whether he would support state legislation to require the shadow groups pouring in millions of dollars into surrogate ads to reveal their donors. We fear he would veto such efforts.

We worry about his views on embryonic stem cell research, which holds great promise for treatment of a variety of ailments. Wisconsin is a world leader in this important work. In the past, Walker has gone so far as to say he would sign a bill banning such research. More recently, he has been less strident, saying, "I'm going to put the money (state funding) behind adult stem cells - not embryonic." That would be a colossal mistake.

But Walker's trademarks are austerity and out-of-the-box thinking, up to and including his proposal to do away with Milwaukee County government altogether. We've not agreed with his no-new-taxes pledge as county executive, but we recognize that it has forced frugality on the County Board that taxpayers might not have gotten otherwise.

His pitch to sell Mitchell International Airport and moves to outsource some county jobs were innovative.

Barrett, meanwhile, has run a spirited, though at times too negative, campaign. His jobs and deficit proposals are far more detailed than Walker's and should be considered even if he's not elected.

But Walker's strokes on these topics are promising, too. He is open to the economic ideas contained in the "Be Bold Wisconsin" report, which suggests, among other things, revamping the state Department of Commerce.

We would hope the Legislature would right-size Walker's proposal for broad tax cuts that would threaten to deepen the state's budget deficit. On this point, Barrett's targeted tax cuts are the better approach.

But in this election, we're looking for a kind of fiscal tenacity that this state has, perhaps, never seen. Talk that Barrett isn't "tough enough" is a bum rap. But, on fiscal matters, there is tough and then there is the right kind of experience.

Walker has both, and that makes him the better choice.

NPR Fires Juan Williams Over Muslim Comments

2010-10-21T17:38:00.001-04:00

Veteran journalist Juan Williams was fired from his job earlier today as a senior news analyst for National Public Radio (NPR) late Wednesday because of comments he made about Muslims and terrorism on "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News Channel. Watch the video yourself! Juan Williams said nothing wrong or racist and I'm glad that he is now no longer associated with NPR. Okay to bash the Catholics and the Jews, but God forbid a Muslim gets offended. Another case of liberal hypocracy!!!

Factoids Worth Knowing...

2010-10-20T22:19:00.001-04:00

The largest animal that ever lived is also currently living -- the blue whale.
The world consumes 2 quarts (approx. 2 liters) of oil per person per day.
If Earth was the size of a basketball, the moon would be the size of a tennis ball and they'd be 25 feet apart.
For every 100 girls born in China, 119 boys are born.
Of all the people in history that have reached 65 years of age, half of them are living right now.
If Earth's life was compressed into one year, then humans would have been around for only 2 seconds.
The Middle East's population almost tripled over the last 30 years.

Scott Walker / Tom Barrett Debate Recap

2010-10-20T18:27:00.000-04:00

Great recap by WISN-TV of the townhall debate last Friday night between Scott Walker and Tom Barrett for governor of Wisconsin. The RC Blog strongly endorsed and supported Walker from Day One of his campaign -- a true Reagan Conservative and future star of the Conservative party. He continues to maintain a healthly lead over Barrett.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0omNJiPs7A

Pope Names Two U.S. Bishops to College of Cardinals

2010-10-20T10:03:00.000-04:00

Great news from the Vatican! Pope Benedict announced that he would be making 24 new cardinals.

That means 24 men need new clerical garb, as they now have the right to be decked out in red. And a red hat in this town means membership in the College of Cardinals, whose most important duty is to elect the new pope.

Only those under the age of 80 are eligible to vote, and four of the new cardinals are over 80 – named mostly as an honorary recognition of their service.

Of the 20 others who will get the red hat, a whopping eight are Italians. That’s a clear sign of just how powerful the Italian presence still is at the top of the Catholic Church, even though the global Catholic population is increasingly less and less European.

Two Americans are on today’s list, and neither a surprise, considering the positions they hold: Donald Wuerl, the Archbishop of Washington, D.C., and Raymond Burke, the former Archbishop of St. Louis.

Burke is the head of the Apostolic Signatura in Rome, roughly the equivalent of the Vatican’s Supreme Court. He infuriated liberal Catholics during the 2004 election season when he said that John Kerry would not be welcome to receive communion in St. Louis because of his position on abortion.

He has also said that Catholic politicians who have supported abortion rights and confused the faithful by doing so should repent and do public penance.

Virginia's The Influence Releases Album, Prepares for National Tour

2010-10-12T07:10:00.004-04:00

Virginia is known for producing outstanding musical talent. The latest to join the list is the Commonwealth's rising star band, The Influence. The RC Blog has been working with this band for the past several years to help them get the level of attention and fandom they deserve. The future is now here....

This five-member band out of Virginia Beach is about to embark on a national tour in early 2011 and its newly released album (Falling Objects) is getting national exposure. The lead single from their new album is "Slippin'" (to check out video, click here).

Here is a good background piece on the band from the latest issue of Magazine 33 out of Richmond (written by Elaine Main):

Virginia Beach - A five-piece rock band from Virginia Beach blending elements of 90s alternative and college rock while adding their own style of modern day indie, the Influence creates an integrated sound that’s been turning peoples heads and ears for the past five years. Originally formed as an acoustic trio, the music has evolved into a band of talented musicians who each bring their own diverse approach into their sound.

It all began in 2004, when lead singer Matthew Archer Stephenson made his way back to Virginia Beach after living in El Salvador. Upon his return, Matt met up with long time friends Will Clarke and John Zontini. The three of them shared similar musical backgrounds as well as the intense drive to make music. Soon they formed an acoustic trio originally known as Plan B. The trio played their first gig together at Abbey Road in Virginia Beach. After playing a few gigs together, the guys realized there was something missing...so they went in search of their missing piece(s).

They found drummer, Collin Cogan, by posting fliers at the Old Dominion University campus in Norfolk, seeking a “young motivated drummer.” When Collin responded to the post, no one knew just how much of the gap would be filled. Bringing not only the refined rhythm to their sound, Collin added his vocals to create a powerful harmony.

It was through serendipity (and a mutual friend) that Chris Tully first met the guys of Plan B. He came to an open mic night at the Hilltop Brewery and listened intently to what would soon become the first step in a new direction. Little did they all know that magic was in the air that night and they had found their ultimate missing piece and new bassist. Tully (as well all know and love him by) completed the sound of the Influence with his smooth bass riffs and deep vocals.

Once the band was complete, they wrote and recorded their first album The Influence of Music. At that time, guitarists John and Will were playing strictly acoustic, which gave the album a softer sound. Each member of the band contributed to vocals in a few tracks. It was clear from the beginning that these five guys possessed talent that would take them far.

By the time they recorded their second album Pig Radio, the band had become more advanced and had introduced the electric guitar to their sound as well as stronger vocals and harmonies. Pig Radio proved that the band was well on their way to evolving into something greater than anticipated. Since the release of their second album, the band has toured extensively, working hard to make a lasting impression on all of their listeners. The Influence put their eclectic touch into their live shows, making each one memorable and unique. Along with their unforgettable tour bus powered by veggie oil and their signature mascot, Ken Horse (may he rest in peace), the band gained a fan base that was strong and diverse, spanning up and down the east coast and stretching across the nation. As a direct result from extensive touring, it was inevitable that the sound would again change, and this time it would evolve into the current-sound of the Influence. Which brings us to the long anticipated third album…

Falling Objects, released September 24, 2010, brings change and new sound. Feeling confident with their enhanced and matured sound, the band was dedicated to taking on the next step in their career. In pursuit of creating a ”record label-ready” album, the group teamed up with producer Ted Comerford, and in Charlotte, North Carolina, Ted came together with the band at Low Watt Studio where Ted came to help shape the new album. Ted wanted to record the new album using what he considered the best songs from the two previous albums as well as four new songs the band had written. Together they restructured a few select tracks and matched them to the sound into which they had evolved. After a long and “very meticulous production,” Falling Objects was finally complete and ready to be released into the world.

When asked how the new album compares to the first, Collin stated, “It's COMPLETELY different! It’s a rock album. I wouldn’t call our first album a rock album. It’s a very polished record. Falling Objects is completely electric versus the first album which was completely acoustic.” Along with their progression into a more refined rock sound, there are various instruments that can be heard in the tracks such as a banjo, keyboards and an organ. Not only is there a new sound with the rock edge and assorted instruments added, the album itself was recorded on vintage gear. Singer Matt stated, “I’m not a gear head, but it really does make a difference in sound when you record with vintage equipment used in like the 60s. It gives the album a 'worn' sound."

Another major change the band experienced was the loss of a member. Very shortly after the album was completed, guitarist John Zontini decided to break away and leave the band. It was difficult for everyone dealing with the sudden change, but the band knew they couldn’t fall behind on the progression they had already achieved. Turning to their long time friend, Chris Kendrick was invited to step in and join them on their journey. Chris had been a member of another local band, Counterfeit Molly, and had played as a guest musician with the Influence for around two years on keyboards and even filling in on drums one evening. Chris was excited to join the band and said, “It’s a little overwhelming, but I feel like I walked into a really good situation.” States Tully, “He’s always been a really good friend and a part of the operation for years."

Matt continues, “We didn’t replace a member, a member left and we chose Chris to step in.” Chris Kendrick is also featured on the brand new track "Old Bones". I asked Chris how he felt about touring/playing with the Influence. “I really enjoy it…I mean, the van smells sometimes but, ya know, it’s fun.”

Throughout the duration of the recording process, the band had experienced several changes and really felt that there was something more for them. Realizing their potential and wanting more control over their career, the band decided to take yet another turn and take on a new challenge - creating their own record label. “We went with a studio where we worked our asses off to make a record that we’re really proud of, and in the process we also learned that we don’t really want to be on a major label. That’s why we formed Flying Eye Records out of it…strange we went in with the exact opposite idea of what we’re doing now. We own our own record label now, we don’t have to have day jobs anymore, and we can go out and play for how long we want. We’re completely in control of it…”

In the past, much of the Influence’s album artwork, t-shirt designs, poster layouts and other art forms have been the design of its members. When asked about the album cover for Falling Objects, Matt replied, “I was looking for a reference for the idea of falling objects and typed in "falling objects” on Flickr, and a picture of hay bales in a field popped up, and I thought, huh, that’s weird. So I took the image of the hay bales and floated them.” (A typical representation of how Matt’s mind works.) Matt contacted the artist named Black Rose who lives in Finland, and by using Babelfish on the internet, communicated with her to get the rights to use the photograph.

Their CD release party was September 24th at the Jewish Mother. When asked how they felt about their favorite venue closing (date set to be the beginning of October), Matt responded, “It really just makes me happy that we can draw on the walls again. They brought the crayons back! That’s been going on since August, so by the time we play our last show there the walls will be covered, so it’ll be like the first time we ever played there.”

Beginning in October, Matt and Will are doing a radio promotion tour along the east coast and spanning to the Midwest. A few dates have been planned for the band to start touring in late October. They’ll be playing from east to west coast and hope to take their tour to Europe by next year.

With the as much dedication and persistence as the band has shown, they’re continually working on their artistry. The band has already written five new songs that they plan to record on the following album. “We’re writing considerably heavier songs right now,” says Matt. Will continues, “We’re starting to write music that’s closer to music that we actually listen to. I really love our first album, but I don’t really listen to music that sounds like that. And I do listen to music that sounds like this.”

The Man-Made Global Warming Fraud - Part 43,173

2010-10-11T16:06:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Mark Levin for getting this information out -- http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100058265/us-physics-professor-global-warming-is-the-greatest-and-most-successful-pseudoscientific-fraud-i-have-seen-in-my-long-life/

Column: Pence is Poised as Vable 2012 Prospect

2010-10-09T10:47:00.003-04:00

An opinion piece from Iowa's Des Moines Register earlier this week:

Indiana Congressman Mike Pence joked during a weekend speech in Des Moines that he didn’t come to Iowa by accident.

Pence, speaking to about 550 people at an Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition dinner, acknowledged he was here on purpose – with a sole aim of helping elect Republicans in November 2010. Few missed the unspoken message that the trip, coming just two weeks after he won the Values Voters presidential straw poll in Washington, D.C., also served to keep his name in play for 2012.

“Oh, he’s running,” Gopal Krishna, vice president of the Iowa Christian Alliance, said after Pence’s speech Saturday at the Iowa State Fairgrounds.

Running for what is the question. Pence is also considered a potential 2012 candidate for governor of Indiana when term limits force out Republican Mitch Daniels. Daniels is also a possible 2012 presidential contender.
Pence, head of the House GOP Conference, stands to increase his leadership status should his party win the majority.

He has been traveling the country, campaigning and raising money for congressional candidates. He stopped by Brad Zaun’s congressional campaign office on Saturday and also endorsed attorney general candidate Brenna Findley.

As for the presidential path, Pence’s supporters are billing him as the antidote to a GOP field in which the best-known potential candidates all have Achilles heels. Mitt has Romneycare. Thrice-married Newt Gingrich has a cross to bear with the Christian right. Sarah Palin is a polarizing mama bear.
Pence emphasized that GOP leaders can’t set aside religious social values even while pocketbook concerns loom large.

It was notable, however, that Pence didn’t weigh in on the debate about judicial retention here in Iowa. “Vote No” signs advocating removal of three Supreme Court justices were flying out the door during Saturday’s event.

When a reporter asked after the speech about judicial elections, Pence took a pass. “I don’t want to comment on a specific local issue. Let me just say, I believe that marriage matters. I believe in defending traditional marriage against the efforts of activist judges who seek to redefine it.”

Critics of the organized effort to defeat judges warn that it opens the courtroom door to special-interest money and political pressure.

Pence, a former radio commentator, likes to use high-flown rhetoric. “A nation conceived in liberty has come of age in bondage to big government,” he said Saturday. Most of the Faith & Freedom crowd was eating it up faster than the fried chicken and Jell-O fluff. Iowa Congressman Steve King praised Pence as the best communicator in the House Republican caucus.

Should Pence run for president, however, he’ll find that lofty eloquence can be a drawback with some voters.

Randy Crawford of Coralville said after the speech that Pence and Mike Huckabee are on his short list for 2012 so far. But Crawford said he prefers to hear Pence when he speaks off the cuff rather than from prepared text. “I just think he sort of thought too hard,” Crawford said. “He’s an excellent speaker, but I’d say he shines more brightly when he speaks from the top of his head.”

Pence said he doesn’t have any immediate plans to return to Iowa, but I expect we’ll see him before long. He’s in a good position to market himself as a better-rounded alternative to the A-list candidates and as a more viable prospect than others on the B or C lists. He may not be a dream candidate, but he’s also not living in fantasyland. As a rising congressional leader with a fundraising base, he could position himself as a slightly paler shade of dark horse.

Latest Poll Numbers for RC Blog Endorsed Candidates

2010-10-08T10:41:00.000-04:00

Here are the latest poll numbers of those candidates running for office this November, which are endorsed by the ReaganConservatives.us blog. Looking good!

Scott Walker leads Tom Barrett in the gubernatorial race in Wisconsin by 9 points.

Mike Pence (lock!).

Paul Ryan (lock!).

Sharon Angle in a dead heat with Harry Reid in the Senate race in Nevada.

Pat Toomey leads Joe Sestak in the Senate race in Pennsylvania by 6 points.

Marco Rubio leads Charlie Crist and Kendrick Meek in the Senate race in Florida by 11 points.

Keith Fimian in a dead heat with Gerry Connolly in the 11th House District in Virginia.

Current RC Blog projections: Governor +7, House +48, Senate +9.

Only 30 days until Election Day!!

ReaganConservatives.us Listed as One of the Top 100 Conservative Blogs

2010-10-08T10:17:00.000-04:00

The ReaganConservatives.us blog was recently recognized as one of the top 100 Conservative blogs on the Internet. Check it out! http://www.mastersineducation.com/100-excellent-conservative-blogs-you-should-be-reading/

Virginia AG Cuccinelli Keeps Up the Heat on Global Warming Fraud

2010-10-04T18:09:00.005-04:00

Today, Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli continued his assault against Dr. Michael Mann and the Global Warming establishment. AG Cuccinelli filed a new, more specific demand for documents related to a Mann grant project when he was at the University of Virginia.

If Dr. Mann and his disciples have nothing to hide, why are they so outraged by today's announcement? If it was me and I had nothing to hide, I would take the pro-active approach and provide all the documentation requested by the subpoena to the press in an event aimed at embarrassing my opponent.

Here is today's article from the Associated Press:

RICHMOND — Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has submitted a new, scaled-down demand for documents related to a former University of Virginia climate-change researcher's work.

Cuccinelli, a global-warning skeptic, is investigating whether Michael Mann defrauded state taxpayers by using manipulated data to obtain government grants. A judge ruled in late August that the attorney general was not specific enough about the nature of Mann's alleged wrongdoing, and that he lacks authority to investigate federal grants.

The attorney general is appealing that ruling to the Virginia Supreme Court.

The new civil subpoena pertains to just one state grant and does not include four federal grants that were part of Cuccinelli's original demand. Cuccinelli also included more specific language in the new subpoena.

Cuccinelli sent the revised demand to the university's attorney last week with an Oct. 29 deadline for responding. University officials, who went to court to fight Cuccinelli's original investigative demands, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

U.Va. has argued that Cuccinelli's actions could impair academic freedom and discourage scientific research. University officials and others also have said the investigation was an attempt to take aim at Mann's conclusions rather than to uncover fraud. More than 800 college faculty members in Virginia signed a letter protesting the investigation.

"I find it extremely disturbing that Mr. Cuccinelli seeks to continue to abuse his power as the attorney general of Virginia in this way, pursuing an ongoing smear campaign against the University of Virginia, me and other climate scientists,'' Mann, who now works at Pennsylvania State University, wrote in an e-mail Monday. He called the probe "a partisan witch hunt.'"

Cuccinelli has denied that he is targeting Mann's conclusions. His office had no immediate comment Monday on the new subpoena.

Mann is one of several climate-change scientists whose work drew international attention earlier this year after hundreds of e-mails from a British climate research center were leaked. Climate-change skeptics seized on the e-mails and suggested climate scientists were systematically exaggerating the threat of climate change.

Cuccinelli is seeking e-mails exchanged between Mann and more than three dozen other scientists. His news subpoena also cites research papers written by Mann that the attorney general claims "contained false information, unsubstantiated claims and/or were otherwise misleading.''

Mann said the papers attacked by Cuccinelli were not cited in the proposal for the $214,700 state grant, which he said pertained to "natural land-vegetation-atmosphere interaction in the African savanna'' and had nothing to do with climate change.

Hillsdale College's Constitution Day Colloquium Available On-Line!

2010-09-28T08:20:00.000-04:00

On September 16 and 17, Hillsdale College and its Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship, in Washington, D.C., hosted a Constitution Day Colloquium webcast for nearly 25,000 registered viewers.

The entire program is archived and now available for online viewing at constitutiondaycelebration.com. With two days of presentations, panel discussions, and debates about the Constitution and current threats to its enduring principles, the event was both educational and inspiring.

Friends, family, and colleagues who have not yet registered and viewed the events may still do so by visiting constitutiondaycelebration.com. Please forward this event to those who are interested.

Also, a DVD version of the Constitution Day Colloquium will soon be available.

Even the San Francisco Press Is Rejecting Sen. Boxer

2010-09-28T08:09:00.000-04:00

Newspaper endorsements don't move many votes -- ask Creigh Deeds how endless love letters from the Washington Post helped him in last year's governor's race -- and the polls have looked a little better for Barbara Boxer lately. But the San Francisco Chronicle editors' refusal to endorse Boxer as one might expect has to be something of a morale hit for them. In a way, the non-endorsement reinforces the point I tried to make with last week's series, that entirely separate from her very liberal voting record, there are a lot of reasons to want to see Boxer out of the Senate: her purchasing of endorsements, the five-figure expenses tied to her jaunts to do "official business" at beach resorts, her 143 bounced checks for more than $40,000 in three years, her massive payments to her family from campaign funds, and her amazing capacity to remember things that didn't happen.

A Republican watching this race closely flagged the editorial and told me, "This has got to be devastating news for Team Boxer. . . . This is the most liberal paper in the state, pretty much." I'm not sure it's devastating, but you have to figure a San Francisco paper's endorsement of a Democrat was one of those factors the Boxer campaign took for granted, like the continued presence of gravity.

It is clear that the editors disagree with Republican Senate nominee Carly Fiorina on policy; if elected, she wouldn't vote the way the Chronicle leaders would prefer. Even though Boxer would, they can't give her the formal thumbs-up: "The incumbent, Democrat Barbara Boxer, has failed to distinguish herself during her 18 years in office. There is no reason to believe that another six-year term would bring anything but more of the same uninspired representation. . . . For some Californians, Boxer's reliably liberal voting record may be reason enough to give her another six years in office. But we believe Californians deserve more than a usually correct vote on issues they care about. They deserve a senator who is accessible, effective and willing and able to reach across party lines to achieve progress on the great issues of our times. Boxer falls short on those counts."

There's even something of an unintended compliment to Fiorina: "In past elections, Boxer has had the good fortune of having Republican opponents who were inept, underfunded, on the fringe right -- or combinations thereof. Her opponent this time, Fiorina, is proving to be articulate, well-funded and formidable.

At Liberty Pundits, Clyde Middleton wants us to keep it in perspective: "What does it mean? Probably no more than a waste of soy ink printed on 90% recycled paper. . . . But it is important to note that the overwhelming majority of its readership is liberal. So an op-ed that fails to support Boxer is worth a few more stay-at-home folks that won't be voting. If Fiorina wins by default, that's perfectly fine. The key is that the 112th Congress opens with Boxer watching on CSPAN with a remote control in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other."

Califorina's liberal bloggers are furious: "The rationale is contradictory and ignorant of key facts, producing an outcome that lacks basic intellectual credibility. Their basic argument is that while Carly Fiorina is an extremist who doesn't share California's values, Barbara Boxer has spent too much time representing California's values. Because Boxer wouldn't sell out California's progressive values to implement a bipartisan set of corporate-friendly policies, the Chronicle views her as 'ineffective' and therefore not worthy of support."

Clifton B., writing at Another Black Conservative, has a problem with the paper's lament that Fiorina's agenda "would undermine this nation's need to move forward on addressing serious issues such as climate change, health care and immigration." He writes, "The nation has spent the last two years with dry heaves over the lefts' position on these issues. It is the main reason why Democrats are getting kicked to the curb in November. Why then would the Chronicle think Fiorina should champion those positions the same way Boxer did? Wake up Chronicle, America doesn't like left's ideas on climate change (sham science), health care (socialism deluxe) or immigration (amnesty for all). It will be interesting to see where the other California papers place their endorsements."

(Source: National Review Online)

Northern Virginia "We Read the Constitution" Event, September 18

2010-09-15T11:50:00.000-04:00

A good friend and great American Shak Hill, and his wife Robin, will be hosting a "We Read the Constitution" event as their home in Centreville, Va., this Saturday, September 18. This is a fantastic way to celebrate Constitution Day (September 17, 1787). See flyer below for more information.

Walker Captures Wisconsin GOP Nomination

2010-09-15T09:58:00.000-04:00

In yesterday's gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin, Scott Walker captured the GOP nomination by 20 points (59-39) in his race to become the next governor of Wisconsin. The RC Blog has been supporting Walker in his race since early 2009. He is a true "Reagan Conservative" and is a rising star in the Conservative wing of the GOP!

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4338479/scott-walker-help-is-on-the-way

Sad but Predictable...

2010-09-13T14:53:00.000-04:00

From last week's Washington Post...

Capitol Hill employees owed $9.3 million in back taxes last year, data show
By T.W. Farnam
Washington Post Staff Writer

Capitol Hill employees owed $9.3 million in overdue taxes at the end of last year, a sliver of the $1 billion owed by federal workers nationwide but one with potential political ramifications for members of Congress.

The debt among Hill employees has risen at a faster rate than the overall tax debt on the government's books, according to Internal Revenue Service data. It comes at a time when some Republican members are pushing for the firings of government workers who owe the IRS and President Obama has urged a crackdown on delinquent government contractors.

The IRS information does not identify delinquent taxpayers by name, party affiliation or job title and does not indicate whether members of Congress are among the scofflaws. It shows that 638 employees, or about 4 percent, of the 18,000 Hill workers owe money.

The average unpaid tax bill is $12,787 among the Senate's delinquent taxpayers and $15,498 among those working in the House.

IRS debt among government workers has surfaced repeatedly as a political issue over the years, most recently when Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) introduced legislation this year to fire federal workers who owe back taxes unless they have entered into a payment plan. Eight Republicans co-sponsored the bill. No Democrats have signed on, and some have said firings would reduce the government's prospects of being paid.

"If you're on the federal payroll and you're not paying your taxes, you should be fired," Chaffetz said in an interview. He said the policy should apply across the board and "there should be no special exemptions."

An agency-by-agency breakdown of IRS debt is not published but is available in a redacted form from the agency upon request. Along with the Capitol Hill totals, it shows that three employees at the Office of Government Ethics owed a combined $75,000. And 41 employees at the Executive Office of the President owed $831,000 altogether - about the same amount as during the last year of George W. Bush's administration.

Some tax experts and watchdog groups say that Capitol Hill employees have an added obligation to settle IRS debts.

"Congress and their staff - because they are the people who write the tax laws and because they work for the public - have to be held to a higher standard," Steve Ellis, vice president of the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, said when told of the IRS numbers.

"These are hard times, but they are on the government payroll," said Mortimer Caplin, an IRS commissioner for presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson and a founding partner of the Caplin & Drysdale law firm. "The idea of paying taxes is kind of fundamental to a sound democracy, and they certainly have a special obligation in that regard."

Nationwide, debt to the IRS has been rising steadily, even before the current economic downturn, with $103.2 billion owed at the end of last year. Tax experts say that delinquencies are another sign of economic pressures on American families, but they also may represent bad individual money management or skewed spending priorities.

On Capitol Hill, recent increases in delinquencies also may reflect the unusual nature of the workforce, which turns over dramatically when a new political party comes into power.

From 2004 through 2006, the last three years that Republicans were in power, the total amount of back taxes owed each year by congressional workers hovered just below $9 million. But in 2007, when Democrats took control of both houses, it dropped to $6.8 million. Since then, it has increased by 37 percent.

Jock Friedly, who publicizes congressional salaries on the Web site LegiStorm, said many new staffers come from the private sector, where they worked as lobbyists or in other higher-paying jobs. "They go to a somewhat lower-paying government job and then, over time, debt starts to build up," Friedly said.

During 2008 and 2009 - when the financial crisis took hold and the economy started sinking - the Senate debt increased 80 percent and the House debt increased 25 percent.

Aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) declined to comment, and aides to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) did not respond to a request for comment.

9/11 Event in Centreville, Va., Tonight

2010-09-11T15:00:00.000-04:00

Let Us Never Forget September 11!

We encourage all neighbors and friends to come to Fire Station 438 on Stone Road & Oday Drive to show their patriotism and support to our servicemen and women, and first responders!

On Saturday, 9/11/10, we will meet at 7:45 PM in front of the fire station for a brief ceremony. Please bring a flashlight, lanterns, or candles and an American flag! Ceremony will include bagpipes, patriotic songs, prayers, comments from firemen and police, local delegates, and more.

The Dream 2010

2010-09-11T14:56:00.000-04:00

Great new election commercial from CatholicVote.org (thanks to Dominik H. for the link...):

Remembering September 11, 2001

2010-09-11T01:07:00.001-04:00

We will never forget....

College Football Kicks Off Tonight!

2010-09-02T12:50:00.000-04:00

Ahhhh... The start of another college football season is finally here! After a long off-season of coaching moves, conference realignments, and cheating programs finally getting caught and punished (goodbye USC!), we're looking forward to the various games this weekend starting tonight with No. 2 Ohio State hosting Marshall at The Shoe and going all the way to Monday night's clash between Boise State and Va. Tech at FedEx field in D.C.

Alabama and Florida remain the elite programs in the SEC and country while Ohio State, Iowa, and Wisconsin will battle it out for the Big Ten title. Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas look like the cream of the crop in the Big 12, while the Pittsburgh Panthers, led by Sophomore sensation Deon Lewis, will take the Big East. If Boise State can knock off the Hokies on Monday night, the Blue Turf Boys could run the table and end up playing for the national title. Although most experts are looking at Ohio State QB Terrell Pryor as the pre-season favorite to win the Heisman, the RC Blog is putting its money on Wisconsin big brusing running back John Clay. Enjoy the season!!

Robert Gibbs -- Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

2010-09-01T13:15:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was another comical and absurd day for the Obama Administration. The day began with the White House Press Hack Robert Gibbs lying on Fox and Friends. In the evening, President Obama addressed the nation thanking himself for the withdrawal of troops in Iraq and highlighting the successes in promoting freedom and liberty in that country under his watch.

Of course, anyone with any kind of short-term memory knows that the success in Iraq was due to the leadership of (1) President Bush and (2) General Petraeus. The actual timeframe nearly hits Bush's original estimate for withdrawing troops from Iraq! This Oval Office address last night only took place because the President and his party are getting crushed in the polls. Hopefully, most Americans will see through this political tactic.

Our thoughts and prayers go out today to all of our country's military and their families, especially the Gold Star families who lost their loved ones in the Iraqi theater over the past several years. Thanks to the courageous efforts of their children and spouses, success in Iraq became a reality. Their efforts will never be forgotten...

On a lighter note, here are the videos of Gibbs lying and Obama's comments on the surge in 2007. Does the Left ever think that maybe somebody has recorded all of their public comments and will catch them in their lies?

Restoring Honor Rally, 8/28

2010-08-29T13:36:00.001-04:00

What a day yesterday in Washington! If the attendance yesterday on the Mall was any indication of the political sediment of Americans, the Left is in big trouble in early November. From everything you read in or saw on the Mainstream Media, this rally was to be sparsely attended. Gee, what a surprise! The media grossly underestimated the attendance. This photo looks like a few more than "5,000 radical racists and religious kooks" as predicted by the Left. I'm sure we'll read and hear this week that Beck and Palin doctored the photo in Photoshop....

Empire State Bldg Not Lit For Mother Teresa Birthday

2010-08-26T23:18:00.000-04:00

The Empire State Building was lit in red, white and blue on Thursday night for women's suffrage as more than 100 people protested a refusal by the iconic skyscraper's owner to mark Mother Teresa's 100th birthday.

Yet the colors that the Catholic League had requested in her honor were the most luminous against the darkened skyline: The building's 203-foot pinnacle blazed a brilliant blue, while the stories just below glowed a frosty white. A fading red was just visible underneath.

The colors chosen were intended to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave women the right to vote.

Nevertheless, more than 100 people led by the Catholic League protested the building owner's decision to deny the organization's request to change the colors of its lights to blue and white in honor of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning nun.

Illuminating the 102-story Manhattan skyscraper in different colors is a tradition. The building has been lit up for the release of Mariah Carey's album in 2008, for the 25th anniversary of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 2009, for religious holidays such as the end of Ramadan and Easter and for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

But the building's owner, Anthony Malkin, declined the Catholic League's request to honor the ethnic Albanian nun, citing a policy of not illuminating the edifice for religious figures. Malkin did not respond to a phone message on Thursday requesting comment.

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan said Mother Teresa, who was born Aug. 26, 1910, may not have approved of the brouhaha over the lighting of the skyscraper.

Dolan, speaking at St. Patrick's Cathedral with members of Mother Teresa's order in the pews dressed in the blue-and-white saris she favored, said she "might be a little unhappy."

"She was humility personified," he said. "She didn't like a lot of attention."

Mother Teresa died Sept. 5, 1997, at age 87. In 2003, she was beatified by the Roman Catholic Church — a step toward possible sainthood.

In her honor, billboards in Times Square were illuminated.

Virginia Able to Regulate Abortion Centers

2010-08-26T15:05:00.000-04:00

In an opinion released late last week, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli states that the Commonwealth of Virginia can regulate abortion centers absent legislation by the General Assembly. This means that these centers can be regulated through the state’s normal regulatory process.

The opinion was sought by state Senator Ralph Smith (R-22, Roanoke) and Delegate Bob Marshall (R-13, Manassas).

Providing safety standards for Virginia’s abortion centers has been a legislative priority for The Family Foundation for many years. Until the mid 1980s centers were regulated but that ended due to constitutional concerns. Since that time, abortion centers have been seen by the state as doctor’s offices, which require no emergency equipment for resuscitation or hemorrhage. The Family Foundation has worked to improve safety standards in abortion centers to those required for ambulatory (outpatient) surgery centers. After all, abortion is an invasive, surgical procedure.

Of course, the abortion industry in Virginia, Planned Parenthood and NARAL, have fought with all their might against safety standards for their centers. They argue that the procedure is safe, despite the fact that the state doesn’t have any reporting requirements for complications to abortion (also fought against by the abortion industry) so there is no way to really know. They also argue that abortion centers shouldn’t be “singled out” for regulation. What they don’t say is that other outpatient surgery businesses are self-regulated through respected, national accreditation organizations that require significant safety measures for their seal of approval. No such respected accreditation group exists for abortion.

The Attorney General’s opinion gives Governor McDonnell’s administration the opportunity to create necessary regulations for abortion centers without approval from the General Assembly. Since state agencies such as the Board of Health already have the power to regulate medical facilities this is not a new policy or a policy change that should require legislation. Previous governors simply have not acted on this ability.

(Source: Family Foundation)

Some Light Political Humor...

2010-08-25T09:23:00.000-04:00

Father O'Malley rose from his bed. It was a fine spring day in his new Washington D.C. parish. He walked to the window of his bedroom to get a deep breath of air and to see the beautiful day outside. He then noticed there was a jackass lying dead in the middle of his front lawn.

He promptly called the U.S. House of Representatives for assistance. The conversation went like this: "Good morning. This is Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. How might I help you?”

”And the best of the day te yerself. This is Father O'Malley at St.Brigid's. There's a jackass lying dead on me front lawn. Would ye be so kind as to send a couple o'yer lads to take care of the matter?"

Speaker Pelosi, considering herself to be quite a wit, replied with a smarmy voice, "Well now father, it was always my impression that you people took care of last rites!"

There was dead silence on the line for a long moment. Father O'Malley then replied: "Aye, that's certainly true, but we are also obliged to first notify the next of kin."

Reagan vs. The Current Left

2010-08-20T12:15:00.008-04:00

Heard the audio track from this effective video produced by the House Republican Study Committee on the Mark Levin Show the other night. This is must-see tv...

Wisconsin's Scott Walker Goes After the Obama Administration on Rail Transportation Stimulus Spending

2010-08-20T00:48:00.000-04:00

In another chapter of a well orchestrated campaign, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker recently launched another in a series of targeted strikes against his November opponent (Tom Barrett) as well as President Obama.

Following his effective "Brown Bag Movement" series of ads, talking points, and speeches, Walker has now developed the "Stop the Train!" slogan. Walker wrote the following letter to President Obama:

Dear President Obama:

Last month, U.S. Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood was in Wisconsin to release $46.7 million of the $810 million in federal stimulus money designated for a train line between Milwaukee and Madison. Releasing these federal funds now is both premature and irresponsible. Public support for the Madison-Milwaukee train has fallen to just 41% as weary taxpayers watch our roads and bridges crumble without sufficient funds to repair them.

Still, Secretary LaHood declared that: “High-speed rail is coming to Wisconsin," and "there's no stopping it."

I am drawing a line in the sand Mr. President: No matter how much money you and Governor Doyle try to spend before the end of the year, I will put a stop to this boondoggle the day I take office.

It’s outrageous for Secretary LaHood to suggest that your administration can force Wisconsin to continue building a train it doesn’t want and cannot afford. Almost as outrageous as the fact that the decision to saddle Wisconsin taxpayers with untold millions in operating and maintenance costs, forever, was never debated or voted on by the Wisconsin legislature. If it had been, this letter would not be necessary.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, my opponent in the race to replace Governor Doyle, has made the Milwaukee to Madison train the centerpiece of his economic development plan for Wisconsin. The Mayor tells us that spending $810 million on high-speed rail will create thousands of new Wisconsin jobs, but according to the federal government’s own estimate, the total number of permanent jobs created will be 55. That’s $14.5 million per job, not including any hidden costs!

As for hidden costs, no one in your administration, nor Governor Doyle or Mayor Barrett can provide an accurate estimate of what it will cost to operate and maintain the new rail line. Rail projects in numerous other areas have seen original cost estimates skyrocket once construction begins.

In addition, study after study shows that rail passenger fares are likely to cover only 20% of the operating costs. That leaves hardworking Wisconsin families to pick up the other 80% through higher taxes and fees.

It’s reckless of Governor Doyle and Mayor Barrett to commit to spending $810 million of our money on a boondoggle train when we can’t even afford to fix our roads and bridges. Our state is facing a $2.5 billion hole in next year’s budget and a list a mile long of transportation needs. If your administration is truly interested in helping Wisconsin build the transportation infrastructure it needs and desires, you should allow us to use this money for roads and bridges instead.

Governor Doyle and Secretary LaHood say we can’t stop the train. I say, just watch us.

Sincerely,

Scott Walker
Milwaukee County Executive
Republican Candidate for Governor

This "Stop the Train!" initiative has garnered national attention and exposure for Walker and shows voters in Wisconsin, once again, why he is the best candidate for the job. The RC Blog applauds Walker and his staff for developing this effective piece.

Control Freaks - 7 Ways Liberals Plan to Ruin Your Life

2010-08-15T13:49:00.000-04:00

Listened to C-SPAN on Friday morning and heard Terry Jeffrey, editor-in-chief of CNSNews.com, who recently released a book called, "Control Freaks - 7 Ways Liberals Plan to Ruin Your Life" (click here to order). Sounds like a great book and Jeffrey had the Left-minded callers all up in arms!

Here is a recent review on Amazon.com:

This is a perfect book for the times. Terrence Jeffrey clearly explains what Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are trying to accomplish and demonstrates why their policies, actions, and legislative tactics are against our Constitution, our heritage as a nation, and the will of the majority of Americans. (Of course, I hope we correct this in 2010 and 2012.)

Chapter One shows how Obama, our disgraceful transportation secretary Ray LaHood (a nominal Republican from Illinois) are using the force of government to manipulate markets to force us out of our cars and even our homes to live in the "high density" housing environments they preferred we would inhabit. You see, they are not about enabling us to fulfill our dreams and live in freedom and liberty, but as far as they are concerned we exist to allow them to fulfill their dreams and visions.

The second chapter focuses on the lies that were used to create social security and why it is collapsing today. Mr. Jeffry shows why would all be better off caring for our own retirement and how to do it than allowing the control freaks to keep ripping us off. And no, none of this is about breaking our promises to those in or near retirement. The rip offs have gone on from the beginning. Did you now that Ida May Fuller, the first recipient of social security, retired at 65 after paying a 1% tax on her $900 salary as a secretary. She had paid in $49.50 from 1937 until her retirement in 1939. By the time she died in she had collected payments from 1940 until 1975. By her third check she had recouped everything from her "trust fund" and when on to collect a total of $22,888.92 of other people's money.

We next explore the way our Federal Constitution has been tortured and ignored by Congress, abetted by "living Constitutionalists" in the judiciary to accomplish an expansion of government to intrude into every aspect of our lives. "Freedom, what freedom? We just want the illusion of security! No matter if we ruin the country as long as I get mine!" is what too many of seem to be saying with our votes and inattention to what our government is really doing to us. It cannot and won't go on, my friends. Not much longer, anyway.

I found the chapter on the perversion of "public use" into "public purpose" and an analysis of the "Kelo" decision by the Supreme Court to be most interesting and useful. I think you will to. This is a huge threat to our lives and property. Of course, the Left doesn't much like the idea of Private Property. To them, everything belongs to the state and they allocated it as the 535 demigods in Congress, the Chosen One in the White House, and the 9 great priests in the Supreme Court see fit. What was it the Declaration says about government existing to protect our natural rights and what we should do if the government fails to protect us in our rights?

The chapter on the way the Left strives to control political speech is exasperating and yet we know from what we see on the news and read in the paper that it is absolutely true. They act as if our Founders wrote the First Amendment to protect pornography rather than political speech. Another chapter on health care and our right to life is also a very important read. Obama pretends that the notion of when life begins is "above his pay grade" when he is a candidate, but when he is in office as a state legislator, a federal Senator or our President, no one is more pro-Abortion than he. Wait until some bureaucrat decides you aren't worth the healthcare sources they would have to allocate to treat you. Even if you have your own money, they will withhold it from you. We have to fight this, folks. Seriously fight it and repeal it.

Which leads us to the culture war the Left wants to fight while preventing the opposition (you and me) from resisting their efforts to "fundamentally transform" our culture and our nation.

An excellent book and you will find you can read it quickly while getting good information you can look up and verify if you want to.

Please get and read this book.

More Damaging Information on Shirley Sherrod?

2010-08-13T13:34:00.000-04:00

Take a look at the following information, which was provided to the RC Blog; no idea as to the originator of the write-up. Very interesting stuff and worth reading and researching.

Andrew Breitbart is a media genius. He proved it originally with his brilliant handling of the ACORN ‘hooker’ scandal which he skillfully manipulated so that the corrupt media was forced, against its will, to broadcast corruption in one of Obama’s most powerful political support groups. But Breitbart’s handing of that affair is nothing compared to his brilliant manipulation of the Shirley Sherrod ‘white farmer’ scandal.

It all began last Monday, July 22, 2010.

As the country watched in horror, Breitbart released a snippet of a tape on his “Big Government” site which showed an obscure black female official of the Dept. of Agriculture laughing to a roomful of NAACP members about how she’d discriminated against a destitute white farmer and refused to give him the financial aid he desperately needed. As she smirked to the room, she’d sent him instead to a white lawyer – ‘one of his own kind’ – for help. The black woman was Shirley Sherrod – and almost immediately she became the center of a firestorm of controversy which exploded throughout the country.

Within a day of the release of that infamous tape, the head of the Dept. of Agriculture, spurred on by Obama, demanded – and received – Sherrod’s resignation. Breitbart had won.

But then seemingly Breitbart’s actions began to explode in his face. As Sherrod screamed in protest, FOX News released the entire text of her speech last March to the NAACP. And there on tape Sherrod was shown supposedly repenting of her racism against a white farmer and instead championing his fight to win funds to keep his farm afloat. Within hours of that entire tape being revealed, the entire world turned against Andrew Breitbart. Conservatives throughout the country were enraged that he’d endangered their reputations by releasing a ‘doctored’ tape. Breitbart, they thundered, had dealt a fatal blow to the conservative media.

I confess that I also was horrified at what I saw as the clumsiness and stupidity of Breitbart in ‘doctoring’ a tape to make a supposedly innocent woman look guilty. But now I discover I have been as guilty of haste to judgment of Breitbart as the Dept. of Agriculture was of Ms. Sherrod.

Only now am I realizing the real purpose for Breitbart’s release of that tape snippet. It was to allow him to cunningly trick the media into exposing one of the most shocking examples of corruption in the federal government – a little known legal case called “Pigford v. Glickman”.

http://pajamasmedia.com/zombie/2010/07/27/pigford-v-glickman-86000-claims-from-39697-total-farmers/?singlepage=true

In 1997, 400 African-American farmers sued the United States Department of Agriculture, alleging that they had been unfairly denied USDA loans due to racial discrimination during the period 1983 to 1997.” The case was entitled “Pigford v. Glickman” and in 1999, the black farmers won their case. The government agreed to pay each of them as much as $50,000 to settle their claims. But then on February 23 of this year, something shocking happened in relation to that original judgment. In total silence, the USDA agreed to release more funds to “Pigford”. The amount was a staggering $1.25 billion. This was because the original number of plaintiffs – 400 black farmers – had now swollen in a class action suit to include a total of 86,000 black farmers throughout America. There was only one teensy problem. The United States of America doesn’t have 86,000 black farmers.

According to accurate and totally verified census data, the total number of black farmers throughout America is only 39,697. Oops. Well, gosh – how on earth did 39,697 explode into 86,000 claims? And how did $50,000 explode into $1.25 billion? Well, folks, you’ll just have to ask the woman who not only spearheaded this case because of her position in 1997 at the “Rural Development Leadership Network” but whose family received the highest single payout (approximately $13 million) from that action – Shirley Sherrod. Oops again.

Yes, folks. It appears that Ms. Sherrod had just unwittingly exposed herself as the perpetrator of one of the biggest fraud claims in the United States – a fraud enabled solely because she screamed racism at the government and cowed them into submission. And it gets even more interesting. Ms. Sherrod has also exposed the person who aided and abetted her in this race fraud. As it turns out, the original judgment of “Pigford v. Glickman” in 1999 only applied to a total of 16,000 black farmers. But in 2008, a junior Senator got a law passed to reopen the case and allow more black farmers to sue for funds. The Senator was Barack Obama.

Because this law was passed in dead silence and because the woman responsible for spearheading it was an obscure USDA official, American taxpayers did not realize that they had just been forced in the midst of a worldwide depression to pay out more than $1.25 billion to settle a race claim. But Breitbart knew. And last Monday, July 22, 2010, he cleverly laid a trap which Sherrod – and Obama – stumbled headfirst into which has now resulted in the entire world discovering the existence of this corrupt financial judgment. Yes, folks – Breitbart is a genius.

As for Ms. Sherrod? Well, she’s discovered too late that her cry of ‘racism’ to the media which was intended to throw the spotlight on Breitbart has instead thrown that spotlight on herself – and her corruption. Sherrod has vanished from public view. Her ‘pigs’, it seems, have come home to roost. Oink!

Reports of Former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, former NASA head O’Keefe Aboard Crashed Plane In Alaska

2010-08-10T10:53:00.000-04:00

DILLINGHAM, ALASKA (BNO NEWS) -- A plane carrying eight to nine people crashed near the city of Dillingham in Alaska on late Monday, officials said on Tuesday. Reports said former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, as well as former NASA official Sean O'Keefe were on board.

The 1957 DeHavilland DHC-3 Otter aircraft went down about 20 miles north of Dillingham on Monday evening, but the exact time of the accident was not immediately known. The Alaska Air National Guard responded to the scene at around 7 p.m. AKDT after another aicraft spotted the wreckage.

The Anchorage Daily News reported that friends of former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens fear he could have been aboard the aircraft. However, there was no immediate confirmation from his family or his staff.

A spokesman for the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company N.V. (EADS) said its North American CEO, Sean O'Keefe, was also on the aircraft. "Local authorities are reporting that there are survivors and a rescue operation is underway," said Guy Hicks, a spokesman for EADS North America.

EADS North American is the North American operation of EADS, an aerospace corporation based in the Dutch city of Leiden. It develops and markets civil and military aircraft, as well as communications system, missiles, space rockets, satellites, and other systems.

Sean O'Keefe is best known as the former Administrator of NASA and led the space agency from December 2001 to February 2005.

Maj. Guy Hayes, a spokesman for the Alaska Air National Guard, told the Anchorage Daily News that there are fatalities, but also survivors. "From what I'm told, there are survivors on this aircraft. I don't know how many could be fatalities at this point," he said.

Political Cartoon...

2010-08-10T07:28:00.002-04:00

Social Security Trustees Report Just Released

2010-08-06T14:50:00.000-04:00

According to the Trustees report, Social Security will run a cash flow deficit of $41 billion (0.3 percent of GDP) this year, will return to small surpluses in 2012-2014 of a few billion dollars a year, and then will begin running increasing deficits from 2015 onward. By 2020, the system will run a cash flow deficit of over $100 billion (0.4 percent of GDP) and by 2030 it will have a shortfall of nearly $460 billion (1.2 percent of GDP).

In the short-term, the health of the Social Security program deteriorated compared to last year's estimates, due to worse economic conditions. Over the longer-term, it improved somewhat, due to the effects of higher tax revenues resulting from more compensation in the form of cash wages as opposed to heath care benefits, resulting from health care reform.

Due mainly to aging and an expanding retired population, costs are expected to increase from 4.8 percent of GDP today to 6.1 percent of GDP by 2030. These costs are generally in line with last year's projections of 4.9 percent of GDP this year to 6.1 percent by 2030. Meanwhile, revenues are expected to be slightly higher than last year's projections, rising from 4.6 percent of GDP today, to 4.9 percent by 2020, and stabilizing at around that level through the 2030s before dropping down to 4.6 percent by 2080.

Over the next 75 years, on top of the $2.5 trillion in government bonds which are currently in the Social Security Trust Funds and which must eventually be repaid, the program still faces an average shortfall of 1.92 percent of taxable payroll-below last year's projected 2 percent shortfall, but a significant imbalance nonetheless.

(Source: Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget)