Call Senators DeMint and Ensign and let them know you support their efforts on this issue!

The housing lobby is frustrated by the delay in passing the Mortgage Bailout Bill and has decided to target Senators Jim DeMint (R-SC) and John Ensign (R-NV).  Recently, lobbyists representing housing industry have started putting pressure on these two Senators whom they view to be the source of the delay.

The motive of the housing lobby should be obvious - if the $300 billion bailout is passed, then they will stand to benefit greatly from not having to take responsibility for their bad loans.  However, Senators DeMint and Ensign have been on the right side of this issue from day one and are leading the fight to expose the bill for what it is: an irresponsible bailout for house flippers and their banks.

Please take a few minutes to call 1-866-928-3035 to express your support for Senators DeMint and Ensign and encourage them to continue to stand firm for limited, responsible government.

Andrew Brown
Federal and State Campaigns
FreedomWorks
601 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
North Building, Suite 700
Washington, D.C. 20004-2601
(202) 783-3870 phone
(214) 336-5273 cell
(202) 942-7649 fax
www.FreedomWorks.org

As the GOP in Congress appears about to be taking an “every man for himself” strategy for the fall elections, Gallup has just given the Republicans another gift (Americans Oppose Income Redistribution to Fix Economy). The results of this poll show that if the GOP ever gets back to preaching and adhering to the simple message that they used to have — one that they’ve previously ridden to victory on — they’d be shoe-ins in 2008. Whether or not the Republicans have cleaned their own house enough to take advantage of something like this remains to be seen.Barack Obama is running on an economic platform that promises to “restore fairness to the tax code”. On the same page of his campaign website that that quote came from, Obama also refers to Bush’s “Tax Cuts for Wealthy Instead of Middle Class”. Put the two of them together and the message that Obama is sending to the public is that he wants to take money from the wealthy and give to the middle class - the very definition of the “Income Redistribution” that this Gallup poll measures public opinion on. Obama doesn’t even have to actively do much for this redistribution to happen - all he has to do is let the Bush tax cuts expire.The numbers in this poll are staggering. Overall, Americans are against the core principle behind Barack Obama’s domestic economic policy — income redistribution — by an astounding 84% to 13%. Republicans oppose it 90%-9%, Independents oppose it 85% to 13%, and even Democrats oppose it 77% to 19%.

American Thinker

It’s really no mystery why 1994 was the year that it was for the Republican Party.  Americans want less taxes.  They want less government.  They want people to be responsible for their actions and the Republican Party gave them that option that year and the voters ran with it.

Unless I’m mistaken, all of these results show support for - dare I say it - Reagan-brand conservatism. Even after all this time — after all the liberal garbage that the Democrats and the media relentlessly shove in our faces — when the public is faced with an economic crisis, Reagan’s conservative message of low taxes and limited government still wins.

So the question remains, why then are so many voters flocking to Barack Obama when he clearly doesn’t represent their beliefs?  I think the answer to that is simple.  The GOP no longer represents those beliefs either.  Bush flushed all our success down the toilet and the Congress joined in so it’s also no mystery why in the past couple of years people have been running from the GOP screaming.

Think about it.  In 1994 the Republicans promised to cut entitlement spending and they did.  Bush expanded entitlement spending by historical numbers.  Republicans promised a balanced budget and delivered.  In fact, the national debt was decreasing during the 1990s.  Bush has almost doubled the debt.  In 1994 Republicans promised less government and a more open government.  The Bush administration has grown government by record levels and has been one of the most secretive administrations in history while the GOP Congress during his administration has been rife with corruption.  Why would any rational thinking person want more of this?

Obama isn’t doing so well because Americans want to turn to Socialism as a cure.  He is simply the “anything but another Republican” candidate.  I don’t know what’s going to happen in November, but the odds are against McCain winning unless something really damning comes out against Obama.  What I do know is that the Republican Party needs to take advantage of the next few years and start pulling itself back together and rebranding themselves with that 1994 image that we all fell in love with.  People want fiscal conservatism and personal liberty.  They don’t want wreckless spending and gay marriage amendments.  The Republicans need to build again from the ground up in places that used to be fertile GOP territory, but now where scarcely a Republican can be found.  There is one Republican House member in all of New England and he is a poor example anyway.  They’re down to only a handful of Congressional seats in New York and California and the party hasn’t been competitive in Presidential races in those two states in 20 years.  They’re beginning to slip in the south and the west and starting to lose suburbia.

I have no doubt that if Obama wins he’ll be a one term wonder.  He’s going to completely bomb just like Carter did.  In fact, his administration won’t be any different than Carter’s other than Obama won’t have a retarded brother running around embarrassing him in public.  If the GOP can get its act together they can make some gains back in 2010 and then go for the full monty in ‘12, but it’s going to have to happen from the ground up.  The folks in leadership aren’t going to do it so it’s up to the people on the ground to start making the noise.

I did not think this was a real campaign ad when I first saw it, but at the end it does say paid for by the Coleman campaign and it’s on the Coleman for Senate YouTube page.

He needs to pull this embarrassment out of the media immediately.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint on Wednesday spearheaded Republican opposition to a $50 billion expansion of President Bush’s signature program to combat AIDS in Africa and elsewhere overseas.

DeMint, U.S. Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina and five other Republican senators blocked Senate consideration of a bill that would more than triple U.S. aid to nations most stricken by AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and to international relief groups helping them.

“For us to attempt to buy friendship around the world by spending $50 billion is just completely irresponsible,” DeMint said. “There are enough worthy causes around the world to bankrupt us a hundred times over.”

The State

Not just irresponsible, it’s unconstitutional!  There is nothing, NOTHING in the Constitution that allows our government to give any of our money away to other nations.  Why isn’t this stuff challenged in the courts anymore??  When FDR was trying to implement all of his Marxist programs the SCOTUS was striking them down left and right (until he scared the crap out of them by trying to expand the court and stack it with Socialist judges).  Yet, today we see unconstitutional bills passed almost daily and they are never challenged.  I hope these Senators hold firm on this.  I am so thankful to have a man like Jim DeMint representing my state.

Woohoo!!  This is a win for all Americans today, Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal.  The Second Amendment does indeed guarantee an individual right to own a gun.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Washington D.C.’s sweeping ban on handguns is unconstitutional.

The justices voted 5-4 against the ban with Justice Antonin Scalia writing the opinion for the majority.

At issue in District of Columbia v. Heller was whether the city’s ban violated the Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms” by preventing individuals — as opposed to state militias — from having guns in their homes.

District of Columbia officials argued they had the responsibility to impose “reasonable” weapons restrictions to reduce violent crime, but several Washingtonians challenged the 32-year-old law. Some said they had been constant victims of crimes and needed guns for protection.

CNN

The decision being a 5 to 4 split though does bother me.  It shouldn’t have been that close.  We were one judge away from having the Second Amendment being totally gutted.  They should have been unanimous on this.  Anyone can clearly see what the intention of the Second Amendment was.  It’s not difficult.

Update:  I found some of the opinions of the dissenting justices.  Get a load of this crap:

In a dissent he summarized from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority “would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons.”

He said such evidence “is nowhere to be found.”

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a separate dissent in which he said, “In my view, there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas.”

Fox News

The speaker of the House made it clear to me and more than forty of my colleagues yesterday that a bill by Rep. Mike Pence (R.-Ind.) to outlaw the “Fairness Doctrine” (which a liberal administration could use to silence Rush Limbaugh, other radio talk show hosts and much of the new alternative media) would not see the light of day in Congress during ’08.  In ruling out a vote on Pence’s proposed Broadcaster’s Freedom Act, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-CA.) also signaled her strong support for revival of the “Fairness Doctrine” — which would require radio station owners to provide equal time to radio commentary when it is requested.

Experts say that the “Fairness Doctrine,” which was ended under the Reagan Administration, would put a major burden on small radio stations in providing equal time to Rush Limbaugh and other conservative broadcasters, who are a potent political force.  Rather than engage in the costly practice of providing that time, the experts conclude, many stations would simply not carry Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and other talk show hosts who are likely to generate demands for equal time.

Human Events

I’m not just loosely throwing out the term like stupid college kids do to describe George Bush when they don’t even know what the word means.  When the government can pass a law that dictates what is government permitted speech and what is not, that is real, live fascism folks.  We are already being told what to expect for the next four years under an Obama presidency and freedom is in jeopardy.

Oh Gordo, how pathetic……….

And he has been leading his Democratic opponent since day one too, that’s what I don’t get.  He may have just thrown it all away.

Feel the embarrassment!

But seriously, as I’ve stated before, this was a poor move by the Obama campaign that made him appear to be egotistical and self-righteous (which he is), and in the end adds only more credence to the notion that Sen. Barack Obama is an unserious, media-hyped candidate.

A piece by Robert Novak today.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — When John McCain met privately with Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin after a political event in the Milwaukee suburbs May 29, the Republican presidential candidate might not have realized that he had just come face to face with an opportunity and a test. Ryan showed him his plan to reform the economy. McCain expressed interest and said he would turn it over to his campaign’s economists.

That was truly ominous. If the Kemp-Roth tax cut had been handed over to economists three decades ago, it likely would have died in its crib and aborted the national and Republican revival under President Ronald Reagan. Ryan’s plan is more sweeping than the proposal by his boss and mentor Jack Kemp, who dealt only with taxes. In 70 pages, “Ryan’s Roadmap for America’s Future” shows the way to reform taxes, control spending and brake runaway entitlement outlays.

Ryan has proposed far too much to handle for nervous House Republican leaders. They have refrained from publicly knocking Ryan down only because they are in a state of terror over their party’s desperate condition, as indicated by plummeting polls and special election defeats. More important is the yet unstated reaction by McCain, famously uninterested in economics but never shy on courage to defy the conventional wisdom.

Actually, to embrace Ryan’s Roadmap requires more political insight than courage. Ryan was met with enthusiastic approval at some 35 town meetings in his southern Wisconsin industrial district, where he unveiled his plan over the last two months. His constituents, who sent liberal Democrat Les Aspin to Congress for 22 years, are legendary “Reagan Democrats” who have soured on the GOP. Ryan believes they are far ahead of politicians in their alarm over entitlements. “Do we have the guts to act?” asks Ryan.

Ryan fears potential national disaster is ahead because we “will exceed the European extent of government and bring our economy to extinction.” With the U.S. government share of the economy at 20 percent, he sees it rising to a calamitous 40 percent when his three children (ages 3, 4 and 6) reach their 30s, requiring a doubled tax rate. President Bush’s appropriations rose $49 billion over the last year, and the Democratic-controlled House upped that ante. But spending enacted by Congress is dwarfed by statutory increases in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlements.

Ryan’s Roadmap makes a serious effort, as neither Congress nor the Bush administration did, to cut appropriated spending. Ryan calls it “Gramm-Rudman on steroids” (referring to successive spending control measures beginning in 1985).

But his boldest thrust comes in radical changes to entitlements, including an option for persons under 55 years old to buy private retirement insurance, plus reduced benefits and delayed retirement for Social Security. His Internal Revenue reform would amount to an optional modified flat tax (advocated in principle by McCain) and substituting a small business consumption tax for the corporate income tax rate — while holding federal taxes to 18.5 percent of gross domestic product.

It is hardly likely the Republican leadership would embrace Ryan’s daring agenda if it cannot even bring itself temporarily to forego pork-barrel spending by passing a moratorium on earmarks. But Ryan represents a younger breed of reform Republicans who now have junior leadership positions.

Ryan, 38, top Republican on the House Budget Committee, has been working closely with freshman Rep. Kevin McCarthy, 43, who has been named chairman of the national platform by Minority Leader John Boehner, and Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, 45, the party’s chief deputy whip. After another expected bad GOP defeat in the 2008 congressional elections, Ryan, McCarthy and Cantor could constitute the party’s new House leadership.

But who will be in the White House? McCain so far has generated little excitement in his own Republican base, much less among Reagan Democrats. His cautious political and economic advisers flinch at complicated tax changes, massive budget cuts and tampering with Social Security. But a campaign based on Barack Obama’s shortcomings may not be enough on Election Day. While Ryan says the people are more than ready for his strong medicine, McCain has not yet agreed.

PHOENIX (AP) — John McCain hopes to solve the country’s energy crisis with cold hard cash.

The presumed Republican nominee is proposing a $300 million government prize to whoever can develop an automobile battery that far surpasses existing technology. The bounty would equate to $1 for every man, woman and child in the country, “a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency,” McCain said in remarks prepared for delivery Monday at Fresno State University in California.

The Times-News

Anyone catch the error in this article?  It’s the second sentence.  The author wrote that McCain was offering a $300 million prize in government money to whoever develops this battery.  The problem is that the government has no money.  What he is offering is $300 million of OUR money, yours and mine.

Cross posted at Carolina Politics Online

North Carolina was rated by Forbes Magazine in 2007 as the best state for business. Things have been very successful here. The state economy has grown by leaps and bounds. The population is exploding and the state is amass with wealth. Things are good and the reason for that is that the government of North Carolina has gone out of its way to bend over backwards to create a business friendly environment in the state and attract industry. They have succeeded in doing so for a few different reasons.

The state government loves corporate welfare. I am not a big fan of that. I believe there are better ways to bring industry that is less wasteful than using taxpayer dollars, but nonetheless it’s worked for them. Another reason is the growth of industry has attracted workers from all over the U.S. expanding the pool of an educated work force in the state. And another reason for the increase in jobs is that North Carolina is a more profitable state to do business in because of cheaper labor costs. In translation, that means no unions. Hence, it’s not a surprise that the Marxist AFL-CIO and company are seething at the money they aren’t getting out of this cash cow.

North Carolina has one of the most restrictive laws against collective bargaining by public employees in the country.

But a labor coalition is making a concerted effort to change that.

Leading the drive is the 2 million-member Service Employees International Union, the nation’s fastest-growing union. This spring, the State Employees Association of North Carolina — the major advocacy group for state workers — voted to affiliate with the SEIU.

Also pushing to change the collective bargaining law are the N.C. Association of Educators, the AFL-CIO and the Teamsters and the American Federation of Teachers.

To gain clout in the legislature, the SEIU has been plowing money into Tar Heel political campaigns.

But the drive also has powerful opposition. Business groups fear it will lead to a more powerful labor movement in the state. State and local government officials warn it will lead to work disruptions, drawn-out negotiations, time-consuming grievance procedures and higher taxes.

Business groups are correct. Unions are a major pain in the ass for everyone. There was a time when this country needed collective bargaining and the power of the unions. Prior to the 1930s working conditions in this country were very poor, but those time have changed. We have the 40 work week today and the fringe benefits, and OSHA safety criteria, etc. Unions served their purpose and seek continued existence only to stuff lots of dollars into the pockets of the guys at the top to the detriment of the little guy they claim to be protecting at the bottom.

North Carolina has a good thing going for it and the state legislature realizes that. Why on Earth would they want to ruin that by allowing greedy, wealth-sucking parasites like the SEIU and the AFL-CIO in the fray? If you want to see North Carolina’s future under a union influenced lobby in Raleigh then take a look at Pennsylvania and the extinction of the steel industry. Look at Michigan and the implosion of the auto industry. Take a gander over to Ohio and notice the disappearance of the manufacturers. Greedy unions took it too far and played a major role in this desolation. There is a reason that part of the country is now called the Rust Belt.

Sure, America was doing great back in the 1950’s when close to a third of the work force was unionized and the top income tax rate topped 80%. The reason for that was we had no competition. Europe was still in shambles following World War II. Japan was still in the dark ages and most of the rest of the world was still living in third world conditions. That hasn’t been the case over the last few decades. The rest of the world has become more competitive with better products and cheaper labor and lower costs of doing business. The U.S. has the second highest Corporate Income Tax rate in the world. The labor unions still live with a 1950’s mind set in a 21st century global economy. Simply stated, it doesn’t work.

The North Carolina state legislature seems to understand this and there is no indication that they intend to bow to anything the labor unions throw at their feet. They are squarely in the pockets of big business. That also can have its negative side, but for now it’s the right direction for the state.

If this is the attitude in England, then the US enviro-psychos and “politicians-turned-scientists” had better increase their fear campaign a little bit more.

The majority of the British public is still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans - and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem, according to an exclusive poll for The Observer.

There is some chatter that this ad, run in South Dakota during the primary, triggered Obama’s decision to opt out of public campaign financing. Whatever you think of the content, ads like this will have a devastating impact on some voters. More details here.

Apparently former candidate and Senator Fred Thompson will be a major force behind a McCain administration’s judicial nominees, according to this article. Makes me feel a little better.

I posted on this earlier, but seriously, how egotistical can Sen. Obama get, what with making his own “presidential” seal and whatnot? Seriously, this feels like a bad political satire movie. Think “Thank You For Smoking,” only a really crappy movie about an egotistical candidate who rants about “HOPE!!!11!” and “CHANGE!!1!”, not a libertarian-leaning movie pointing out the hypocrisy of American government and the value of free choice in a free society.

Senator Chris Dodd. Former presidential hopeful for the Democratic nomination. Now under intense scrutiny after receiving a “VIP” loan from a mortgage lender, Countrywide. Did I mention this same company will benefit from legislation that Dodd is pushing? As Forrest Gump would say, that’s all I have to say about that.

Anyone in the majority in Congress even listening to Americans, or looking at the friggin’ gas price lately?!? Anyone? Why is my voice echoing as if no one’s home?

At some point, really, any point guys, are the news media and a whole lot of Americans going to realize how shallow and quite frankly full of you-know-what Barack Obama is? For crying out loud, the guy throws out the race card and simultaneously cries “racism” against Republicans who have done no such thing, pledges that he can’t disown Rev. Wright any more than he can disown the black community, then does exactly that when he realizes the connection is hurting him politically, and continuously claims that people he has known for 20 years “aren’t the people he’s known” (see: Ayers, Weather Underground, Wright, et al)?!? Come on, people!! Wake up and smell the ruse. This isn’t so much “change we can believe in,” it’s more like “empty political rhetoric we can count on!”

I received several things in the mail recently. One was a letter and “census” from the Republican National Committee. I put census in quotation marks intentionally, because it wasn’t so much of a census as it was a BS questionnaire merely validating what Republican voters expect. I made sure to write plenty of comments in the margin of the letter (stuff like, “conservative principles don’t need a new blueprint”), and on the “census” itself, and I am going to send it right back to them. Oh, and they asked for money. I pretty much told them to go pound sand in that regard.

Other things in the mail? Similar letter and “census” from the NRSC, and a letter from Sen. John McCain, including a bumper sticker. Not sure what I’m doing with the sticker yet, but I’m considering writing in that letter’s margins as well and sending it back to the campaign.

While Rome burns, Washington, D.C. inhabitants continue to play a fiddle…

Stumbled across this at RedState.

In a truly bizarre piece on Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, we learn that the 9/11 mastermind, throat-cutter of WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl, and planner of several indonesian terror strikes had “despair over the likelihood that he would never see his children again“.

Call it “reading his own press releases.”  Call it “drinking his own Kool-Aid.”

Whatever you call it, the decision by the Obama campaign to create a personalized faux Presidential Seal for the candidate is simply breathtakingly ridiculous.

If you want to see firsthand the moral decay and societal break down created by left wing extremism look no further than  to the Peoples Republic of Taxachusetts, about the most liberal state in the country.  85% of the state legislative seats are held by Democrats.  The entire Congressional delegation to Washington is Democrat as are the two U.S. Senators and the Governorship is held by a Democrat.  Not to mention that this is the home of the first homosexual marriages and the first Marxist health care system.

I bet their parents are so proud.

GLOUCESTER, Massachusetts (AFP) — Locals in this small seaside town on the Atlantic coast are used to drawing attention to themselves by the size of their fishing catch or the rugged beauty of Goodharbor Beach.

But this week, Gloucester, one of the oldest towns in the United States, was thrust into the spotlight for an entirely different reason, as it emerged that a sizeable group of teenage girls from the town’s high school had fallen pregnant — many of them after reportedly making a pact to do so.

Education officials first noticed something was amiss when a group of girls went to the clinic at Gloucester High School for “repeated pregnancy tests,” schools superintendent Christopher Farmer told Fox News in an interview Friday.

“When they became pregnant, they appeared to believe that was a satisfactory outcome for their behavior,” he said.

Media reports on Friday said 18 girls at Gloucester High School are expecting babies.

“Certainly, it is far more than the norm,” said Farmer.

On Thursday, the principal of Gloucester High, Joseph Sullivan, was quoted by Time Magazine, which broke the story this week on the national and international stage, as saying nearly half the expectant girls, none older than 16, had “confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together.”

AFP

Whether you’re supporting McCain or not in the general (I think most regular readers here know where I stand on it), this quote (not to mention news article) says a lot about many conservatives’ problems with Sen. McCain:

“He’s having his private meetings to rally Hispanics and to tell them what they want to hear,” she said. “I’m outraged that he would reach out to me as a Hispanic but not as a conservative.”

Touche.

Karl Rove has penned a damning piece in the WSJ today on the “windfall profits” asshattery by both McCain and Obama.  The full article is well worth the read, but here is the meat:

Instead ask this: Why should we stop with oil companies? They make about 8.3 cents in gross profit per dollar of sales. Why doesn’t Mr. Obama slap a windfall profits tax on sectors of the economy that have fatter margins? Electronics make 14.5 cents per dollar and computer equipment makers take in 13.7 cents per dollar, according to the Census Bureau. Microsoft’s margin is 27.5 cents per dollar of sales. Call out Mr. Obama’s Windfall Profits Police!

It’s not the profit margin, but the total number of dollars earned that is the problem, Mr. Obama might say. But if that were the case, why isn’t he targeting other industries? Oil and gas companies made $86.5 billion in profits last year. At the same time, the financial services industry took in $498.5 billion in profits, the retail industry walked away with $137.5 billion, and information technology companies made off with $103.4 billion. What kind of special outrage does Mr. Obama have for these companies?