From the LA Times

If Republicans win the 39 seats they need to gain control of the House this fall, Boehner faces a pivotal choice: Will he emerge as the consummate deal-maker many know him to be, working with Obama to show frustrated voters that Washington can govern?

Halt.

Washington has been governing aplenty since Obama and his party took over. For many disaffected voters, the sheer volume of recent governing — taxing, spending, regulating, lecturing the prols — is what frustrates them.

Or will Boehner, under pressure from a more conservative House and a “tea party” electorate, maintain a fiercely partisan strategy in hopes of making Obama a one-term president?

Partisanship comes with parties.

If you favor a big government, Keynesian approach you favor Democrats. If you favor a smaller government, Hayek free-market approach, you favor the GOP. At least on economics.

Many GOP voters are frustrated that the GOP isn’t honoring its principles; thus the Tea Parties.

“My sense is if Boehner had an opportunity to do so, he would act responsibly,” said Ronald Peters, a political science professor at the University of Oklahoma’s Carl Albert Congressional Research and Studies Center. “I don’t know if those around him would go in that direction.”

Isn’t that cute? Going along with Obama is being responsible.

Such is the group-think inside the big media bubble.

Chuck DeVore at Big Government demonstrates that GOP-leaning states handle their budgets more responsibly.

…Now, compare the high-debt states to the states shown in blue that voted for Obama—the linkage between debt and voting behavior is visually clear.

According to Moody’s, the average state per capita debt of the 28 Obama states is $1,728 while the average debt in the 22 McCain states is less than half, at $749.  This information alone says a lot about voters and their attitude towards government and debt.  Voters with a propensity to elect politicians who burden future generations who can’t yet vote with huge debts voted for Obama while fiscally responsible voters generally voted for McCain.

HT: Susan Gertson

14 Weeks from Republican Governors Association on Vimeo.

IBD:

The Internet is a large-scale version of the “Committees of Correspondence” that led to the first American Revolution — and with Washington’s failings now so obvious and awful, it may lead to another.

People are asking, “Is the government doing us more harm than good? Should we change what it does and the way it does it?”

Pruning the power of government begins with the imperial presidency.

Too many overreaching laws give the president too much discretion to make too many open-ended rules controlling too many aspects of our lives. There’s no end to the harm an out-of-control president can do.

Bill Clinton lowered the culture, moral tone and strength of the nation — and left America vulnerable to attack. When it came, George W. Bush stood up for America, albeit sometimes clumsily.

Barack Obama, however, has pulled off the ultimate switcheroo: He’s diminishing America from within — so far, successfully.

He may soon bankrupt us and replace our big merit-based capitalist economy with a small government-directed one of his own design.

He is undermining our constitutional traditions: The rule of law and our Anglo-Saxon concepts of private property hang in the balance. Obama may be the most “consequential” president ever.

The Wall Street Journal’s steadfast Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote that Barack Obama is “an alien in the White House.”

His bullying and offenses against the economy and job creation are so outrageous that CEOs in the Business Roundtable finally mustered the courage to call him “anti-business.” Veteran Democrat Sen. Max Baucus blurted out that Obama is engineering the biggest government-forced “redistribution of income” in history.

Fear and uncertainty stalk the land. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke says America’s financial future is “unusually uncertain.” (more…)

Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele was absolutely right. Afghanistan is Obama’s war and, judging by other recent Democratic ventures in military affairs, isn’t likely to turn out well.

It has been idiotically claimed that Steele’s statement about Afghanistan being Obama’s war is “inaccurate” — as if Steele is unaware Bush invaded Afghanistan soon after 9/11. (No one can forget that — even liberals pretended to support that war for three whole weeks.)

Yes, Bush invaded Afghanistan soon after 9/11. Within the first few months we had toppled the Taliban, killed or captured hundreds of al-Qaida fighters and arranged for democratic elections, resulting in an American-friendly government.

Then Bush declared success and turned his attention to Iraq, leaving minimal troops behind in Afghanistan to prevent Osama bin Laden from regrouping, swat down al-Qaida fighters and gather intelligence.

Having some vague concept of America’s national interest — unlike liberals — the Bush administration could see that a country of illiterate peasants living in caves ruled by “warlords” was not a primo target for “nation-building.”

By contrast, Iraq had a young, educated, pro-Western populace that was ideal for regime change.

If Saddam Hussein had been a peach, it would still be a major victory in the war on terrorism to have a Muslim Israel in that part of the globe, and it sure wasn’t going to be Afghanistan (literacy rate, 19 percent; life expectancy, 44 years; working toilets, 7).

But Iraq also was a state sponsor of terrorism; was attempting to build nuclear weapons (according to endless bipartisan investigations in this country and in Britain — thanks, liberals!); nurtured and gave refuge to Islamic terrorists — including the 1993 World Trade Center bombers; was led by a mass murderer who had used weapons of mass destruction; paid bonuses to the families of suicide bombers; had vast oil reserves; and is situated at the heart of a critical region.

Having absolutely no interest in America’s national security, the entire Democratic Party (save Joe Lieberman) wailed about the war in Iraq for five years, pretending they really wanted to go great-guns in Afghanistan. What the heck: They had already voted for the war in Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11 when they would have been hanged as traitors had they objected.

The obsession with Afghanistan was pure rhetoric. Democrats have no interest in fighting any war that would serve America’s interests. (They’re too jammed with their wars against Evangelicals, Wal-Mart, the Pledge of Allegiance, SUVs and the middle class.) Absent Iraq, they’d have been bad-mouthing Afghanistan, too.

So for the entire course of the magnificently successful war in Iraq, all we heard from these useless Democrats was that Iraq was a “war of choice,” while Afghanistan — the good war! — was a “war of necessity.” “Bush took his eye off the ball in Afghanistan!” “He got distracted by war in Iraq!” “WHERE’S OSAMA?” and — my favorite — “Iraq didn’t attack us on 9/11!” (more…)

Thomas Sowell recalls the Peanuts gag where Lucy swipes away the football when Charlie Brown tries to kick.

…There is a similar routine that has been repeated many times in Washington, over the years, with the Democrats playing Lucy and Republicans playing Charlie Brown.

It goes like this: Democrats start spending money wildly, handing out goodies to a wide range of people who they want to vote for them, while Republicans complain about deficits and the national debt. Then, when the public becomes alarmed about the debts that are piling up, the Democrats get the Republicans to vote for higher taxes to deal with the debt crisis, in the name of “fiscal responsibility.”

Sometimes the deal is sweetened by the Democrats promising to make spending cuts if the Republicans vote for higher taxes, so that there can be one of those “bipartisan” solutions so beloved by the media. But, after the Republicans vote for the tax increases, and come running up to find the spending cuts, the Democrats snatch away the spending cuts and the Republicans fall right on their backsides, just like Charlie Brown.

This old trick is now being unveiled by the Obama administration, like so many other old political tricks used in this “change” administration.

In one of President Obama’s many prissy little sermonettes, complete with finger wagging, he has declared: “Next year when I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country, I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits step up. Because I’m calling their bluff.”

There is already a bipartisan commission set to provide political cover for the Democrats’ wild spending that has increased the national debt from 63 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product in 2004 to 83 percent in 2009— and official estimates of more than 90 percent this year, with more increases in sight.

Why Republicans join such transparent attempts to rescue the Democrats from the political consequences of their own actions is one of the many unsolved mysteries of human nature in general and the Republican Party in particular.

What this political game boils down to is that Democrats get all the political benefits of playing Santa Claus to all sorts of groups and special interests, while Republicans who vote to raise taxes to pay for all this are cast in the role of Frank Nitti, the enforcer for the mob.

Many elections have confirmed that Santa Claus is more popular than Frank Nitti, surprising as that may be to some people.

Republicans are not the only suckers in this game. The voting public’s willingness to believe fancy rhetoric and ignore hard facts is a crucial part of this scam.

When the Obama administration said that it could provide health insurance to millions of additional people without increasing the national debt, shouldn’t common sense have told you that somebody was just insulting your intelligence?

When the two thousand page bill was rushed through Congress too fast for anybody to read it, shouldn’t that have made you realize that you were being played for a sucker?

When this bill that was passed with lightning speed was scheduled to take effect only after the 2012 election, didn’t that suggest that they didn’t want you to find out how it works in practice in time to turn against Obama when he is up for reelection?

Recent polls show that a lot of people are against ObamaCare. But there are still a lot of other people, though not as many, who are for it.

Even more amazingly, there are still Republicans lured by the siren song of “bipartisanship” and apparently unaware of the difference in popularity between Santa Claus and Frank Nitti.

Michael Barone:

Eleven states voted yesterday in primaries and runoffs—the largest number of the year—and one way to look at the results is that no incumbent member of Congress lost his or her bid for reelection. So does this make 2010 less of an anti-incumbent (and anti-Democratic) year? Not really. I am put in mind of the story of the Teamsters Union business agent who was confined to the hospital. A bouquet was sent, with a note reading: “The Executive Board wishes you a speedy recovery, by a vote of nine to six.” Such was the voters’ verdict on incumbents on June 8.

Consider Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln, renominated in 2004 by an 83%-17% margin and reelected that November by 56%-44%. One big headline of last night’s news coverage was that she won her Democratic primary runoff over Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter. But her margin was only 52%-48%. And in recent polling she trails 3rd district Republican Congressman John Boozman by a 59%-34% margin. Her runoff victory and her “I’ll keep fighting” election night speech may close the gap a bit in Jacksonian Arkansas. But not by much.

Or consider South Carolina 4th district Republican Congressman Bob Inglis. Elected in 1992, 1994 and 1996, he lost a Senate race to Democrat Ernest Hollings in 1998, then came back to win when his 4th district successor Jim DeMint ran successfully for Hollings’s seat in 2004 and won reelection in 2006 and 2008. So he’s represented the 4th district—Greenville and Spartanburg, basically, for 12 of the last 18 years. And on Tuesday he trailed Spartanburg County Solicitor (i.e., prosecutor) Trey Gowdy by a 39%-28% margin. That’s a devastating result for an incumbent in his own party’s primary: 100% know him and 72% voted for someone else. Inglis managed to carry his home base of Greenville County but by only 29%-24%. He lost Spartanburg County 60%-19%. Maybe he has a chance in the runoff since there are a lot more voters in Greenville County than Spartanburg County; but I doubt it. Gowdy’s winning tactic: he pointed out that Inglis has the most liberal voting record of any South Carolina Republican member of Congress (although only marginally more so than Senator Lindsey Graham’s), including voting for the $700 billion TARP bill in fall 2008.

Note also that 3rd district Republican Congressman Gresham Barrett, who also voted for TARP, did not fare well in his race for governor. He did in fact make it into the runoff, winning 22% of the votes to 49% for state Representative Nikki Haley (pictured above).

But he carried only 4 counties in his congressional district and lost the other 42 counties in the state to Haley. I am told that almost all South Carolina Republican politicians detest Haley as a cheap shot artist who takes demagogic stands against all other incumbents (in the mode of outgoing Governor Mark Sanford, last seen on the Appalachian Trail heading to Argentina; Sanford’s estranged wife Jenny Sanford as well as Sarah Palin endorsed Haley). But I suspect that Barrett may decide that extending this contest into a June 22 runoff is a waste of his time and psychic energy. The insiders-don’t-like-her theme doesn’t have the timbre of a winner.

Interestingly, Haley is the daughter of Sikh immigrants from India. If elected governor she would be the second Republican governor of a Southern state, after Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, to be the child of immigrants from South Asia. Who’d a thunk it? And when you’re putting your mind around that, consider that the leader in the Republican primary for the open South Carolina 1 seat relinquished by retiree Henry Brown is Tim Scott, who may be the most conservative and assuredly is the only black Republican in the South Carolina legislature. He led Paul Thurmond, son of the late Governor and Senator Strom Thurmond, by a 31%-16% margin; in third place with 14% was Carroll Campbell, son of the late Congressman and Governor Carroll Campbell.

What would Strom Thurmond (born in 1902, allowed to parachute into Normandy in 1944 after getting leave for being too old, State’s Right Democratic candidate for president in 1948 as Trent Lott reminded us in December 2002) have thought of this? Or what would his father’s good friend and his own friendly acquaintance Pitchfork Ben Tillman (born 1847, governor 1890-94, U.S. senator 1895-1918, “censured by the Senate in 1902 for assaulting another Senator on the Senate floor,” as the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress 1789-1989 informs us) have thought? The mind reels. This is a great country and South Carolina, for all the trouble it has caused the rest of us, is a great state.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) said the state will not waiting for federal approval to begin building sand barriers to protect the coastline from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Oil has pushed at least 12 miles into Louisiana’s marshes, with two major pelican rookeries awash in crude.

Gov. Jindal was critical of the amount of boom his state received to ward off the oil seeping toward the coastline. But his major gripe comes at the expense of the Army Corps of Engineers, who have yet to give the go-ahead for the building of sand booms to protect the Louisiana wetlands. He used photographic evidence of oil breaking through hard booms, soft booms and another layer of protection, before being finally being corralled by a sand boom built by the National Guard.

“It is so much better for us. We don’t want oil on one inch of Louisiana’s coastline, but we’d much rather fight this oil off of a hard coast, off of an island, off of an island, off of a sandy beach on our coastal islands, rather than having to fight it inside in these wetlands,” Gov. Jindal said, making the case for sand booms.

The governor said he has been forced to protect Louisiana without the approval of the Army Corps of Engineers, which is weighing the ecological impact of the construction of more sand booms.

The GOP governor of New Jersey is a breath of fresh air.

Federal authorities have arrested a Philadelphia man and charged him with threatening to kill House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and his family.

Norman Leboon will be charged with two federal counts: threatening to kill a member of Congress and interfering with his federal duties, and posting video online containing such threats. He is scheduled to appear in federal district court in Philadelphia on Monday afternoon.

So, did this make the network news? Surely, you jest:

NBC on Monday night squeezed in a few seconds for the arrest of “a Philadelphia man for threatening the life of the number two Republican in the House of Representatives, Eric Cantor of Virginia.”

Yet after the networks led last week with less-immediate threats against Democrats, they weren’t so interested in a real case of a death threat against a Republican as neither CBS nor ABC aired a word about the arrest and NBC’s Brian Williams gave it short-shrift after leading last Wednesday with Democrats as the victims: “It’s getting ugly as anger over health care reform erupts into some over-the-top rhetoric, including threats now against members of Congress.”

The next night, Williams still portrayed opponents as the only ones with miscreants amongst their ranks: “While the White House continues to celebrate its largest-ever legislative victory, opponents of health care reform have reacted to the final vote with anger, a few of them with threats of violence.”

CBS last week started with “threats of violence against Democrats who voted for health care reform” as Nancy Cordes relayed how “Democrats complain Sarah Palin is also using violent words and imagery.” On Monday, the CBS Evening News devoted a full story to fretting over a “loophole” which insurance companies may use to delay providing coverage to kids with pre-existing conditions and Katie Couric spent half a minute on how the New York Yankees are “the best-paid team in all of sports,” with the NBA “the highest-paid league” followed by cricket’s Indian Premier League.

John at Powerline:

With Stupak’s collapse, passage of the Democrats’ government medicine bill is assured. This is a dark day in American history; one of the darkest. But there are many reasons for optimism. Here are a few:

* The health care battle is just beginning. Next, the Senate will try to enact the House’s “fixes” to the original Senate bill. Some Senators say that won’t happen. If not, then President Obama has the option of signing the original Senate bill–now passed by the House–Cornhusker Kickback and all. I assume he would do that, but the resulting blowback from House Democrats, not to mention the American people, would be something to behold.

* The health care bill’s taxes will go into effect promptly, but its substantive provisions are, for the most part, deferred for four years. This means that we have plenty of time to repeal the legislation. Sure, it will take a new Congress and new President. But repealing this disaster of a bill will by a rallying cry for the American people for years to come. Moreover, even if the Republicans only take over the House in November, and not the Senate, won’t it be possible to throw roadblocks in the way of the bill’s implementation? Won’t budget appropriations be necessary to sustain the various federal tentacles the bill seeks to establish? What will happen if the House simply refuses to fund them?

* I’ve never been prouder to be a Republican. The party’s Congressional leaders have fought this battle to the end on behalf of the American people–with intelligence, toughness, persistence and good humor. The contrast between the parties has never been starker than in today’s debate. If any intelligent Democrats were watching–there must be some left–they had to be embarrassed for their party.

* Paul Ryan has emerged as one of the conservative movement’s strongest spokesmen. In the years to come, I think we will hear the words “I’m a Paul Ryan Republican” with increasing frequency.

* The health care debate has energized the conservative movement and awoken the sleeping giant, that is, the American people. The Democrats misinterpreted their electoral victories in 2006 and 2008 as a mandate for socialism. Now a majority of voters are intent on disabusing them of that misapprehension. Just about all of the political energy today is on the right–a remarkable fact, only sixteen months after the Democrats’ high-water mark in November 2008.

* Barack Obama has used his political capital–pretty much all of it–on unpopular legislation that will continue to rile the voters for years to come. As a result, Obama is a remarkably unpopular second-year President. And he hasn’t even experienced any bad luck yet. It is hard to see how he will be able to regain his footing.

So, be of good cheer. To paraphrase a great American, we have not yet begun to fight.

Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander says pushing health care reform through Congress by a simple majority using the reconciliation process would be political suicide for Democrats and vowed to campaign for the repeal the bill if it passes.  On “This Week”, Sen. Alexander to told Elizabeth Vargas, “It would be a political kamikaze mission for the Democratic Party if they jam this through after the American people have been saying.”

Alexander also said, if Democrats do pass a health care reform bill, “for the rest of the year, we’re going to be involved in a campaign to repeal it.”  He added that democrats would pay a political price for passing health care.  “Every Democratic candidate in the country is going to be defined by this unpopular health care bill at a time when the real issues are jobs, terror and debt.”

President Cocky demonstrates his gracious bipartisanship.

Senator Foolish exposes himself.

Does he think old people should pay the same life insurance premiums as young people? Is that segregation?

Then there was this exchange.

Obama: I just want to focus on Medicare Advantage, because I haven’t seen an independent analyst look at this and say seniors are healthier for it, or taxpayers are better off for it. That’s what we’re talking about reforming. We’re not talking about cutting benefits under the Medicare program as is required under law. What we’re talking about is Medicare Advantage. And you know, it may be that some people here think that it’s working. I know that there’s some Republicans who are sitting at this table who don’t think it’s working. You can argue and say okay, let’s not do Medicare Advantage, and let’s not close the donut hole, for example. Or, you know, there may be other ways you want to spend that money. But I just want to establish whether we’ve got some agreement that the Medicare Advantage program, which is what we are proposing to reform, is actually not a good deal to taxpayers or for seniors, and certainly not a good deal for the 80% of seniors who aren’t in Medicare Advantage, because by the way, they’re paying an extra premium of about $90 bucks a year to subsidize the 20% who are in Medicare Advantage.

John McCain: I’ll just make one comment. Why in the world, then, would we carve out 800,000 people in Florida that would not be, have their Medicare Advantage cut? Now I proposed an amendment on the floor to say everybody would be treated the same. Now Mr. President, why should we carve out 800,000 people because they live in Florida to keep their Medicare Advantage program, and then want to do away with it?

Obama: I think you make a legitimate point.

The Corner:

At his briefing today, Robert Gibbs said: “We are tremendously hopeful, which is why the president posted ideas of his on the White House website today. We hope Republicans will post their ideas, either on their website or we’d be happy to post them on ours, so that the American people could come to one location and find out the parameters of what will largely be discussed on Thursday.”

A Boehner spokesman replies: “Mr. Gibbs needs to talk with his boss.  Our health-care alternative — the full text of the legislation — has been available at healthcare.gop.gov for months, which President Obama knows, since he discussed it with us in Baltimore a few weeks ago.”

Mickey Kaus:

‘Please R.S.V.P. to Attend Our Summit. And F.Y.’: If you were going to write an invitation designed to make sure Republicans don’t come to President Obama’s 2/25 “bipartisan” health care summit at Blair House, it would be this one, no? …. Do Rahm Emanuel and Kathleen Sebelius want Republicans to attend? If so, you’d think they’d be less agressive and argumentative. Sample:

Now is the time to act on behalf of the millions of Americans and small businesses who are counting on meaningful health insurance reform. In the last year, there has been an extraordinary effort to craft effective legislation. There have been hundreds of hours of committee hearings and mark-ups in both the House of Representatives and Senate, with nearly all of those sessions televised on C-SPAN. The Senate spent over 160 hours on the Senate floor considering health insurance reform legislation and, for the first time in history, both the House of Representatives and Senate have approved comprehensive health reform legislation. This is the closest our Nation has been to resolving this issue in the nearly 100 years that it has been debated.
The Blair House meeting is the next step in this process.

Unsubtle subtext: We like our bill and the purpose of this meeting is to set things up so it can pass. … But what if, as a Republican, you don’t think we are “the closest … to resolving this issue in … nearly 100 years”? Maybe you don’t think the bill will resolve the issue at all! (I disagree, but I’m not a Republican.) … Even if Obama’s only trying to appear bipartisan, his aides are doing a mighty poor job of conveying that impression. Did they hire Chris Lehane to draft it?

by Burt Prelutsky

When I was a youngster, I was appalled that in a nation that had been forged by the likes of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Franklin, political corruption not only existed, but that politicians would attach such a low sales price to their reputation.  In one famous instance, during Eisenhower’s administration, Sherman Adams traded his personal honor for the price of a vicuna coat.  In retrospect, I guess Mr. Adams knew the actual value of his reputation better than anyone.

            The best that can be said for those like Senators Nelson and Landrieu is that they held out until Obama and Reid met their price.  By now, I can’t even recall what it took to make Joe Lieberman say “Uncle!”  But it just goes to prove that when politicians like these three refer to themselves as moderate Democrats, we should recognize that it’s similar to the distinction made in a related field when call girls insist they’re not streetwalkers.  It’s the same profession; only the prices differ.

            All the while, smarmy Harry Reid, who should wear a fancy wide-brimmed hat and toot around town in a pimp mobile tells us not to be alarmed, that “it’s merely business as usual.”  With that attitude, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised that when the voters in Nevada dump him next November, he’ll be able to land a job with ACORN.

            The Copenhagen Conference is long over, but the odor lingers on.  Even in the wake of the East Anglia emails exposing global warming to be the most audacious “scientific” hoax since the Piltdown man, hundreds of freeloaders flew into Denmark on fossil-burning jets and then rode around in a convoy of limousines that had to be brought in from neighboring countries to meet the demand.  In the course of the expensive farce, these loons gave ovations to Hugo Chavez and Mahmud Ahmadinejad, and insisted that those people, such as you and I, who weren’t still living in mud huts, burning cow chips for heat and eating their neighbors, should fork over billions of dollars to an assortment of thugs, mullahs and tribal chiefs, who happen to be running pig sties posing as nations.

            They proved, as if any further proof were needed, that they had the collective I.Q. of a herd of cattle by holding their global-warming get-together in one of the coldest cities in one of the coldest countries on the face of the earth in the middle of December.  There’s nothing that says hot-hot-hot so much as a snowstorm and freezing temperatures.

            As joyous as I’ll be when Obama and his gang of sewer rats pack up and go back where they came from, I don’t envy his successor.  The next person who moves into the Oval Office will have to devote all of his or her time and energy to simply trying to undo the destruction this crew has wrought.  Frankly, I don’t know if it will even be possible, but it will be necessary.  What I do know is that if the next commander in chief is up to the task, he or she will be the greatest president since George Washington.

            Finally, I would advise the Republicans to forge a new contract with America.  They can call it whatever they want, but after watching them in action from 2000 to 2006, I see no reason to take them on blind faith.  Those bozos controlled both houses of Congress, not to mention the White House, and what did we see?  We saw Republicans spending our money like drunken Democrats.  And speaking of Ted Kennedy, John McCain and his Republican colleagues treated him with such reverence, you’d have thought he was Ronald Reagan or, at the very least, sober.

            You had six years of Republicans pushing amnesty for illegals, lacking even the guts to call it what it was, and parroting liberals when it came to oil drilling in Anwar and building nuclear plants.

            So, as anxious as I am to see the Socialists ridden out of Washington on a rail, I want certain promises in writing before I vote for people for no better reason than that they happen to have attached an ® after their name.

            For openers, I don’t believe when it comes to politics, anyone is indispensable.  So, I want strict term limits for everyone holding elected office.  Serving one’s city, state or country, should be a privilege, not a career.  If you disagree, all you have to do is consider the fact that 92-year-old Robert Byrd, President pro tempore of the Senate, is in line to be president if Obama, Biden and Pelosi, all dine on the same tainted lobster.  Or, for that matter, consider the fact that it’s President Pelosi if Obama and Biden decide to tie on the feedbag without her.

            Next, I want full disclosure of everyone the president talks to in person or on the telephone, be it a foreign leader, a union boss, a corporate CEO or a bookmaker.  I don’t want to have to wait until he or she is safely out of office and has a book to peddle before I find out who had his ear for the previous four or eight years.

            Furthermore, I do not want any bill passed or law enacted that exempts those who foisted it on the rest of us. If those pompous, arrogant jerks think the health bill is so great, they better be ready to live and die with it.

            Oh, and about those big fat pensions and those big cushy lobbyist jobs when they retire or get voted out, forget about it!  And if they are ever caught voting for a bill they haven’t read in its entirety, they’re going to jail for fraud.

            Finally, for good measure, no longer will such a racist, un-American, group as the Black Congressional Caucus be permitted to exist.  This is the United States House of Representatives, ladies and gentlemen, not the Trinity United Church or the Mystic Knights of the Sea, even though Charley Rangel does remind me an awful lot of the Kingfish.

From Daniel Foster at The Corner:

In this video, a bemused President Obama responds to a claim by Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas) that monthly deficits under the Democrat-controlled Congress exceed the annual deficits accrued by Republican Congresses from 1996 to 2007:

Obama calls for “independent fact check” of Hensarling factual statement Beginning at about 3:33, the president says: “When you say that suddenly, I’ve got a monthly . . . deficit that’s higher than the annual deficit left by the Republicans . . . that’s factually just not true. And you know it’s not true.”

At 5:08, the president says “I am happy to have any independent fact-checker out there take a look at your presentation versus mine in terms of the accuracy of what I just said.”

Obama is right. Monthly deficits under the recent Democratic Congresses don’t exceed annual deficits under those Republican Congresses. But they come pretty darn close.

Hensarling’s comments likely emerged from a release issued by the Republican Study Committee just yesterday, showing that the total accumulated deficit from Republican-controlled budgets from FY 1996-FY 2007 (and factoring in the substantial surpluses run from 1998-2001) stands at just under $1.246 trillion. The deficit run by Democratic-controlled Congresses in just three years — starting with FY2008 and including the latest CBO projections for FY 2010 — is already $3.222 trillion.

That means that over twelve years of Republican rule, there was an average annual budget deficit of about $104 billion. Compare that with an average annual deficit since 2008 of $1.074 trillion — or about $90 billion per month.

No need to trust the GOP document either. The CBO has all the data in a handy downloadable spreadsheet here.

On principle, members of the GOP did not vote for the absurd, budget-busting (and largely useless) stimulus bill or for the Cap and Trade bill or the Obamacare bill. Because they were bad bills.

How bad? The Dem Cong had to bribe their own members to scrape up the votes to pass them.

Obama thought he could stiff the opposition (recall his cocky, “I won” comment to GOP leaders) and push his agenda through on a partisan basis. Now, after the Masschusetts election, he’s pointing fingers.

Charles Krauthammer:

On Jan. 14, five days before the Massachusetts special election, President Obama was in full bring-it-on mode as he rallied House Democrats behind his health-care reform. “If Republicans want to campaign against what we’ve done by standing up for the status quo and for insurance companies over American families and businesses, that is a fight I want to have.”

The bravado lasted three days. When Obama campaigned in Boston on Jan. 17 for Obamacare supporter Martha Coakley, not once did he mention the health-care bill. When your candidate is sinking, you don’t throw her a millstone.

After Coakley’s defeat, Obama pretended that the real cause was a generalized anger and frustration “not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.”

Let’s get this straight: The antipathy to George W. Bush is so enduring and powerful that . . . it just elected a Republican senator in Massachusetts? Why, the man is omnipotent.

And the Democrats are delusional: Scott Brown won by running against Obama, not Bush. He won by brilliantly nationalizing the race, running hard against the Obama agenda, most notably Obamacare. Killing it was his No. 1 campaign promise.

…

You would think lefties could discern a proletarian vanguard when they see one. Yet they kept denying the reality of the rising opposition to Obama’s social democratic agenda when summer turned to fall and Virginia and New Jersey turned Republican in the year’s two gubernatorial elections.

The evidence was unmistakable. Independents, who in 2008 had elected Obama, swung massively against the Democrats: dropping 16 points in Virginia, 21 in New Jersey. On Tuesday, it was even worse: Independents, who had gone 2-to-1 Republican in Virginia and New Jersey, now went 3-to-1 Republican in hyper-blue Massachusetts. Nor was this an expression of the more agitated elements who vote in obscure low-turnout elections. The turnout on Tuesday was the highest for any nonpresidential Massachusetts election in 20 years.

Democratic cocooners will tell themselves that Coakley was a terrible candidate who even managed to diss Curt Schilling. True, Brown had Schilling. But Coakley had Obama. When the bloody sock beats the presidential seal — of a man who had them swooning only a year ago — something is going on beyond personality.

That something is substance — political ideas and legislative agendas. Democrats, if they wish, can write off their Massachusetts humiliation to high unemployment, to Coakley or, the current favorite among sophisticates, to generalized anger. That implies an inchoate, unthinking lashing-out at whoever happens to be in power — even at your liberal betters who are forcing on you an agenda that you can’t even see is in your own interest.

Democrats must so rationalize, otherwise they must take democracy seriously, and ask themselves: If the people really don’t want it, could they possibly have a point?

“If you lose Massachusetts and that’s not a wake-up call,” said moderate — and sentient — Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, “there’s no hope of waking up.”

I say: Let them sleep.

Bruce Walker in the American Thinker:

The Contract With America dealt primarily with bringing to vote specific popular measures. What enrages and infuriates Americans today is that the very process of government seems divorced from the will of the people. A health care bill opposed by the vast majority is bought through bribery, which is openly defended by Democrats as “business as usual.” Republicans should attack this specific idea of government for sale.

This is what Republicans should do in 2010: Write in simple words what the Republican Party will do if given power. Unless the majorities gained are overwhelming, which is almost unimaginable in 2010, Republicans can promise only to bring to a vote and to support most of these measures. If kept, that promise can be the beginning of a new revolution.

This 2010 Midterm Platform should be very short, very clear, and very definite. It should be small enough to fit in a short letter. It should be easy enough for nearly every American to understand. It should be a solemn pledge that must be kept (as the each specific term of the Contract With America was kept). Let Democrats stumble through thousand-page congressional bills which no one has read and which are changed in the middle of the night to win wavering votes. This is what Republicans should promise:

In either house Republicans control, adopt a new rule which would prohibit voting on any bill unless the entire language of the bill has been made public at least thirty days prior to the vote. End all hidden dealings on federal legislation and last-minute amendments, and allow a real national debate on any new federal legislation in the exact form of its ultimate enactment. Adding pork into crevices of vast bills is simply a way to buy votes. Obama vaguely promised to oppose this, and then he broke his word. Republicans must absolutely guarantee uncluttered congressional bills. Legislation too murky and vast for voters to possibly understand destroys the whole idea of democratic government and places legislation into the hands of political operatives.

Republicans should vote to repeal all health care legislation passed under Obama and insist that any new proposal be published completely and without amendment at least thirty days before Congress votes on it, in accord with the new rule. This could allow Republicans in control of the House to circulate to all America a very short and popular health care reform bill which accomplishes, without political payoffs or backroom deals, many good and popular changes. In fact, if Republicans could adopt a bill so short that it could actually be mailed to all Americans a month before its vote in the House, then all Americans could read in a few minutes precisely what Republicans are planning.

Support for the Republican bill could become a self-generating political juggernaut that could undo all the harm in Obama’s health care plan and make our health care system better. Pick, as in the Contract With America, what the vast majority of Americans think is needed and make that the bill. It would pass the House with overwhelming support. Senate Democrats and Obama could support it, or else rightly be seen as the obstacle to reform.

People forget how things were. How a government built a wall to keep its citizens from fleeing it evil awfulness, then shot them in the back if they tried to escape.

When Reagan called the Soviet Union evil, the intellectual elites gasped at his supposed lack of sophistication. Why, we had to get along with that regime…it was just so, so undiplomatic.

Yeah.

Chicago Tribune:

Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate have spent the spring, summer and fall grappling with how to fix the health care system. They’re still trying to craft a bill they can sell to Americans — or even explain in plain English.

And the Republicans? Well, as the minority party, they’re mainly on the sidelines. They’ve become the party of “no,” sniping at every Democratic health care reform idea without promoting any of their own. Right?

Not entirely.

Over the summer and fall, Republicans in the House and Senate have introduced six — yes, six — health care reform proposals. You didn’t hear? Well, those plans didn’t produce much of a ripple because Democrats dominate the Congress.

But now Republicans are weighing a shift in strategy. Instead of taking more potshots, some Republicans say their party should present a coherent alternative to whatever final Democratic plans emerge in the House and Senate. Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee reportedly are drafting legislation the GOP could introduce when Democrats bring their proposals to the floor.

Here’s hoping they do. Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., who sponsored a health reform bill, said recently: “The job of the opposition is not just to point out all the flaws in legislation coming to the floor, but to offer ideas for how you would fix it.”

He’s right. Others offering proposals: Rep. Tom Price of Georgia, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, Rep. John Shadegg of Arizona and Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina.

We don’t agree with everything in these bills. But the GOP proposals contain smart ideas to increase choice and competition in the health insurance market — a powerful Republican counterpoint to the Democrats’ expensive plans. The ideas include:

–Let insurers sell policies across state lines. That would loosen the strangling state-by-state regulations and unleash competition to drive premium prices down.

–Give people who buy insurance in the private market the same tax breaks as those who get it through employers. Now, employers that offer coverage get a tax break on the premiums they pay for employees. And employees don’t pay taxes on the value of the coverage they receive. People who want to buy insurance in the individual market should get the same tax breaks. That would help millions of people acquire coverage.

–Expand the ability of small businesses, trade associations and other groups to set up insurance pools to offer coverage at more attractive rates.

–Control health costs in part by reining in the medical malpractice system that raises insurance premiums and forces doctors to order tests to protect themselves from lawsuits. Limiting certain kinds of damage awards would reduce spending on health care by about $11 billion in 2009, or about one-half of 1 percent, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. Think about that in human terms: Reform would save millions of patients the expense and trauma of unnecessary tests and procedures.

These excellent ideas could expand coverage for the uninsured without cratering the federal budget or curbing the competition and innovation that drive the U.S. health care system. Republicans should keep pushing them — and ruling Democrats need to give them a full and fair hearing.

by J.C. Phillips

In his first year in office former president Bill Clinton, who had run as a centrist, was drawn into the new left vortex of socialized healthcare, which led to a resounding defeat for Clinton and the Democrats in the 1994 mid-term elections. Current President Barack Obama too is attempting to reform healthcare and like Clinton has seen his popularity sink. Some political pundits are drawing comparisons between the two administrations and positing that democrats are setting themselves up for a bit of a spanking come 2010. It is, as Shirley Bassey sang, “all just a little bit of history repeating.”

 Or is it?

 In 1994 the political right offered voters something more than simply criticism of the President. Republican members of the House of Representatives presented voters with the “Contract with America.” This document, signed by all but two Republican congressmen and all of the Republican congressional candidates, detailed the specific legislative action Republicans would take if the American people handed them the reigns of government. The contract was a “detailed agenda for national renewal, a written commitment with no fine print.”

 At the time of this writing I am not aware of Republicans having any such detailed agenda nor, unfortunately, am I confident that there is one in the works. I have a recurring nightmare that we will all awake on January 1st with a President and Democrat congress weakened by continued economic malaise, a healthcare boondoggle and threats of huge energy taxes designed to save the planet only to be greeted with the Republican mantra of tax cuts – a tune that has become monotonous and rings rather hollow, due primarily to Republican complicity in building the ship that delivered us to these rocky economic shores.

 And yet like 1994 over-reaching by the new left has provided Republicans with a huge political opportunity to perhaps retake the House of Representatives or at the very least deny Democrats their filibuster proof majority. But in order to convince voters that the right is prepared to drive domestic policy the GOP needs more than complaints and criticism; they must present a committed and detailed agenda.

 Rather than call it a “Contract with America,” which seems a bit old hat, we can perhaps refer to this as a Political Warranty – a warranty that if the GOP is returned to power they will be bound to a short-list legislative agenda aimed at delivering true healthcare reform, true education reform and truly trying to realize a post racial America.

I am not talking about rhetoric or an articulation of principles. Alas, Republicans are all too adept at articulating principles; they have as of late been rather lackluster in conveying specific policy.

 What is the specific legislative action the GOP is going to take to increase competition in health care? How willing is the GOP to buck the system and remove barriers to insurance purchases across state lines? To removing obstacles to new insurance companies entering the industry? How committed is the GOP to instituting real tort reform? True price and quality transparency? Are they willing to butt heads with the AMA and make it easier to build new medical schools in order to train more doctors?

 Republicans talk about education reform, but what is the specific legislative action they promise to take in order to remove decisions about K-12 education out of the pockets of the bureaucrats and back into the hands of parents? How will they encourage innovation? How will they rebuild our vocational schools to meet the needs of the 21st century?

 Finally, criticism of the President for not moving the nation beyond race means very little without a GOP re-commitment to being the post=racial party. Republicans must warrant that they will be most committed to legislation that furthers the battle against discrimination of all kinds. Further the warranty must make it clear that the party will not tolerate bigotry of any sort within its ranks.

 I will leave it to others more politically astute than I to fill in the blanks, but the questions must be answered. The GOP has a real opportunity to become the true party of reform, but history will not simply repeat itself without a little nudge.

A slideshow. Meat Loaf? Who knew?

Democrats claim Republicans are against healthcare reform, that they’re stubborn, petulant obstructionists. Not so.

Byron York:

Rep. Tom Price, the Georgia Republican who heads the House GOP Study Committee, came to President Obama’s speech Wednesday night itching to make a point. Price, who also happens to be an orthopedic surgeon, has often heard the president accuse Republicans of criticizing Democratic health care proposals while having no plans of their own. He expected Obama to do the same Wednesday night.

“We knew the president would at some point say something like, ‘and the other side has no ideas,’ ” Price says. So Price and his Republican colleagues brought with them copies of the more than 30 health care reform bills they have proposed in the House this year.

Obama didn’t directly accuse Republicans of not having a plan. But he did say he would welcome “serious” health care proposals. “My door is always open,” Obama said.

That’s when Price held up the sheaf of papers he was carrying — a copy of H.R. 3400, the Empowering Patients First Act, which Price and the Republican Study Committee proposed in July. Other GOP lawmakers held up their own bills. Some raised a list of all the health care bills — there are more than 30 — proposed by members of the Study Committee.

Why use the props? “To say in a quiet and respectful way, ‘Here are our ideas,’ ” Price says. “To say to the president, ‘You’re not being honest with the American people when you say that there haven’t been ideas put forward, and that you’ve listened to them, because you haven’t.’ ”

The small Republican protest got a bit of coverage, although it was overshadowed by the hubbub over GOP Rep. Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” outburst during the president’s speech. But the larger problem remains. Republicans have authored a number of health care bills — serious legislation addressing portability, pre-existing conditions, cost and other issues that most trouble American consumers — and hardly anyone has noticed.

Republicans don’t really blame Nancy Pelosi. The speaker is as partisan a Democrat as they come, and no one is surprised that she has used her power to stifle Republican efforts. But they do blame the Obama administration. “The White House, in spite of saying they look forward to meeting with anybody who wants to solve these challenges, has rebuffed us at every turn,” Price says.

They also blame the media. Somewhere in this extended health care debate, Republicans believe, reporters might have noticed that there are real, substantive GOP proposals out there. So far, though, it hasn’t happened.

A search of the LexisNexis database of newspapers, magazines, television programs and major blogs finds about 3,000 mentions of the major House Democratic bill, H.R. 3200, in the past six months. (Those are just the stories that refer to the bill by its House number; there have been thousands more stories referring generally to the Democratic legislation.) A similar search found 60 mentions of H.R. 3400, the Price bill.

Another Republican bill, H.R. 2520, the Patients’ Choice Act, by Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, received 12 mentions in the same time period. And two other bills, H.R. 3217 and H.R. 3218, the Health Care Choice Act and the Improving Health Care for All Americans Act, by Rep. John Shadegg, together received 20 mentions.

The virtual embargo on reporting Republican legislation has allowed Democrats and their allies in the media to keep up the “Republicans have no plan” attack. Just hours after the president’s speech, for example, the Democratic National Committee released a new commercial claiming that Republicans “refuse to offer a plan” to reform the health care system.