Cochise County (AZ) Sheriff Larry Dever, honorary co-chair of BorderSherrifs.com, discusses why he strongly supports Arizona’s immigration enforcement law and his amicus brief in opposition to lawsuits filed by the ACLU and the Obama Administration against Arizona and its sheriffs.
Listen to the interview here.
Yes, the Show-Me State is virtually always an important bellwether of which way the presidential election is headed. But in 2012, it may say a lot about the future of the senate as well.
Freshman Democrat Claire McCaskill will be standing for reelection in 2012. She’s a canny political operator and a fairweather moderate — both of which are necessary in this most swinging of swing states.
The Missouri GOP looks to have a full bench — Jim Talent, the mainstream Republican who McCaskill defeated in 2006 is said to be mulling a comeback attempt. Yet the most interesting development may be that South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint — the conservative senate leader who is apparently not content to let any grass grow under his feet — is already feeling out an alternative candidate.
That candidate is Sarah Steelman, the former Missouri State Treasurer who was nearly the Republican gubernatorial nominee in 2008. Steelman is smart, articulate, accomplished, attractive and (best of all) an erstwhile economics professor. If you start to hear her name more often, it’s a good leading indicator that 2012 may follow the 2010 trend and bring another class of exceptional Tea Party candidates to the upper chamber.
Amid solid recommendations to put Medicare and Medicaid on a sustainable financial path, Obama Debt Commission member and Roadmap author Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) staked out very defensible ground for today’s conservative leaders to Roll Call’s Mort Kondrake:
And the incoming chairman of the House Budget Committee described himself as having been mentored by the late Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.), believing in “a prosperous opportunity society built atop a solid safety net.”
“I am not a laissez-faire, Hobbsian libertarian,” he told me. “I believe in a circumscribed safety net, one that helps people get back on their feet and is there for people who can’t help themselves. But I believe in a pro-growth, limited-government, free-enterprise society that encourages people to make the most of their lives.”
Anyone else for a one-on-one debate between President Barack Obama and Rep. Ryan on healthcare reform next January?
In a wide-ranging piece, The Daily Caller explains the continuing mainstream media bias against Andrew Breitbart and anyone else who dares to shine a light on government corruption. Breitbart’s castigation during the Shirley Sherrod episode spurred him to research liberal claims he only spotlighted Sherrod’s discriminatory comments to an NAACP crowd as a quick gimmick. After four and a half months of interviews, Breitbart is in the early days of a multi-stage release on the depth and breadth of the Pigford settlement scandal that so far has cost taxpayers over $2 billion.
Since President Barack Obama has a direct link to the newest $1.15 billion funding the Pigford II settlement round, don’t be surprised if the White House comes under continuing pressure to defend itself for its legislation-for-votes deal-making.
Here’s chairmen list for next year’s House committees:
Agriculture – Frank D. Lucas of Oklahoma
Appropriations – Harold Rogers of Kentucky
Armed Services – Howard P. “Buck” McKeon of California
Budget – Paul Ryan of Wisconsin
Education and Labor – John Kline of Minnesota
Energy and Commerce – Fred Upton of Michigan
Financial Services – Spencer Bachus of Alabama
Foreign Affairs – Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida
Homeland Security – Peter T. King of New York
Judiciary – Lamar S. Smith of Texas
Natural Resources – Doc Hastings of Washington
Oversight and Government Reform – Darrell Issa of California
Science and Technology – Ralph M. Hall of Texas
Small Business – Sam Graves of Missouri
Transportation and Infrastructure – John L. Mica of Florida
Veterans – Jeff Miller of Florida
Ways and Means – Dave Camp of Michigan
Of particular interest will be how Hal Rogers of Appropriations and Fred Upton of Energy & Commerce handle federal spending and repealing ObamaCare, issues that fall under their committees’ jurisdictions.
H/T: New York Times
Sarah Palin’s decision not to seek the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee is smart politics. Palin rightly notes that the job is mainly fundraising, something that doesn’t get the Mama Grizzly’s blood moving quite like making speeches and endorsements.
Good for Palin. She’s right about the RNC job, which should go to someone with a proven track record for raising money and get out the vote support from all branches of the Republican Party. Of course, it would be great to see a conservative at the helm, but it probably should be someone who is much more adept at party building than movement leading.
Remember “Climategate,” which exposed the flawed and doctored data behind global warming alarmists’ partisan agenda?
We may have a new equivalent with the Obama Administration’s persecution of for-profit colleges. A “Collegegate,” if you will.
CFIF has detailed the Education Department’s unjustified demonization of for-profit colleges, which provide working Americans the opportunity to improve their educations, obtain critical job skills and make themselves more marketable amid a tight employment market. We also detailed how Senators Tom Coburn (R – Oklahoma) and Richard Burr (R – North Carolina) have inquired into allegations that the Education Department “may have leaked the proposed regulations to parties supporting the Administration’s position and investors who stand to benefit from the failure of the proprietary school sector.”
Now, compounding the shamefulness of this federal persecution, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has just admitted that its August 4, 2010 report alleging undercover recruiting violations was defective. This is significant, because only 1% of GAO reports receive revisions, suggesting substantial error in this particular instance. Predictably, the GAO says that it stands by it’s “central finding,” but so did the United Nations and other global warming activists following the Climategate disclosures. The implications are serious enough that Senator Mike Enzi (R – Wyoming) has written GAO chief Gene Dodaro regarding “a number of troubling questions” that “undermine many of the allegations” that the GAO has leveled in its campaign against for-profit colleges.
So on top of a transparently partisan Obama Administration attack against career colleges and allegations of insider trading, we now have the federal government admitting that its supposed “sting” report was defective. It’s time to get to the bottom of this debacle, which is already humiliating for the Obama Administration. It appears as though it’s only about to get worse…
From President Obama’s remarks earlier today defending his deal with Congressional Republicans to prevent tax increases:
I’ve said before that I felt that the middle-class tax cuts were being held hostage to the high-end tax cuts. I think it’s tempting not to negotiate with hostage-takers, unless the hostage gets harmed. Then people will question the wisdom of that strategy. In this case, the hostage was the American people, and I was not willing to see them get harmed.
Not quite “we refuse to negotiate with terrorists.” Let’s hope the press conference wasn’t airing on Al-Jazeera.
Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.
View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.
Credit to comedian Kathy Griffin for performing in a VH1 salute to the troops at Miramar Marine base, but even more credit to the Marines who booed loudly once she viciously attacked Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol.
Referring to Bristol’s strong performance on “Dancing with the Stars,” Griffin said, “She’s the only contestant in the history of the show to actually gain weight.” Despite the Marines’ hostile response, Griffin persisted by saying, “She’s like the white Precious,” referring to the morbidly obese Academy Award nominee in last year’s film.
Fortunately for Griffin, the Marines were too polite to grab the microphone and say, “Bristol Palin isn’t the white Precious, but you are the female Carrot Top.”
Courtesy of a story from UK Reuters:
President Hugo Chavez blamed “criminal” capitalism on Sunday for global climate phenomena including incessant rains that have brought chaos to Venezuela, killing 32 people and leaving 70,000 homeless.
Worst hit is the coastal area of the South American OPEC member nation where millions live in precarious hillside shantytowns and mudslides have been toppling rickety houses.
Hmmm, an oil-rich nation with millions living in shantytowns? How often do you think that happens in capitalist societies, Senor Chavez?
Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.
View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.
Yuval Levin notices an interesting trend in the various plans coming out of the Obama Debt Commission. When the proposals are added together there seems to be a consensus building towards overhauling federal healthcare entitlement spending. If done correctly, it could be a moment for conservatives to inject market principles like choice and opportunity into the system.
There is growing agreement in American politics that the challenge of our time is cleaning up the horrible mess created by the Great Society—the mess that is our approach to domestic discretionary spending but above all the mess that is our health-care entitlement system. That is the essence of our debt and deficit problems.
The question is whether we can deal with that mess by keeping the basic structure of the Great Society entitlements while trimming significantly elsewhere and massively raising taxes, or whether we must deal with it by fundamentally reforming those Great Society entitlements while trimming significantly elsewhere and spreading the tax burden more widely but less heavily to encourage growth and innovation. The latter is fairly obviously the answer to that question—given demographic and economic realities, and given the kind of country the American public wants to live in—but it will take a little time before that really sinks in. It is a very good thing, though, that the question is now being asked.
Reforming (or rather, transforming) the Great Society into a fiscally sustainable, free market-guided, consumer-driven system would be the kind of bipartisan project worthy of the era President Barack Obama and his congressional counterparts find themselves. Solving that puzzle would establish the president’s sought for legacy while enacting the kind of policy changes the Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and other conservative intellectuals champion.
H/T: National Review Online
There are two kinds of licensed professionals you don’t want to see the word “creative” describe: accountants and lawyers. Unfortunately, the top lawyer at the Obama Labor Department just released a to-do list that could double as a well-conceived strategy memo for business-hating bureaucrats concerned they may not have enough power.
In Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund’s recent article the solicitor at Labor proposes the following actions to increase the regulatory burden on private enterprise:
With the workforce experiencing 9.8% unemployment, this kind of strategy – and heaven forbid, enforcement – will only make matters far worse.
Not even former President Bill Clinton could sway the hearts and wallets of the voters who shunned the United States in favor of Russia and Qatar to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. Apparently, the ad-lib prone ex-president deviated from the script, plugging his eponymous global initiative instead of making America’s case for hosting the world’s most popular sporting event.
Instead, that honor will be enjoyed by Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the desert Muslim emirate of Qatar. Coming on the heels of the Olympic Committee’s rejection of the Obama Administration’s push to bring the Summer Games to Chicago that means the two most recent Democratic presidents (by definition, acceptable citizens in the international community) have failed to turn their supposed popularity into victories for their countries.
Oh well; wait ‘til next, next decade…
This week’s edition of the Liberty Update, CFIF’s weekly e-newsletter, is out. Below is a summary of its contents:
Senik: A Landmark Presidency No More? Obama’s Historical Legacy May be Smaller Than He Thinks
Lee: Cancun Climatologists: Americans Should Impose “Rationing System” and “Halt Economic Growth”
Ellis: WikiLeaks Exposes Liberal Double Standard on Whistle Blowers
Freedom Minute Video: North Korea: Right Back Where We STARTed From
Podcast: Washington Examiner Chief Congressional Correspondent Discusses Lame Duck Session and Incoming Freshmen
Jester’s Courtroom: Bear Slapped
Editorial Cartoons: Latest Cartoons of Michael Ramirez
Quiz: Question of the Week
Notable Quotes: Quotes of the Week
If you are not already signed up to receive CFIF’s Liberty Update by e-mail, sign up here.
In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino explains why the Senate should reject ratification of the new START Treaty and how the president should focus instead on disarming dangerous rogue nations like North Korea.
Moments ago, the Labor Department announced that the nation’s unemployment rate, which had stagnated at 9.6% for three consecutive months, actually rose to 9.8%.
Alarmingly, this means that unemployment has now stood above 9% for 19 consecutive months, a post-World War II record. Analysts had predicted 150,000 new jobs for October, but it turned out that only 39,000 were added, far below the number necessary to reduce the unemployment rate.
No American should take pleasure in others’ blight, but we simply must face the fact that the Obama-Reid-Pelosi Keynesian economic agenda has failed, and a course correction is critical. In the 20 months since Obama signed the budget-busting $1 trillion “stimulus,” unemployment has only risen from 8.4% to 9.8%. In contrast, in the 20 months following the effective date of the Reagan tax cuts, unemployment plummeted from 10.4% to 7.3%. The facts speak for themselves. It’s time for remedial free market action.
Susan Ferrechio, Chief Congressional Correspondent for the Washington Examiner, shares her thoughts on the final weeks of the current Congress and what is in store for the 80 new Republicans entering the House.
Listen to the interview here.
Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel famously said that we mustn’t allow a “crisis to go to waste” in foisting such things as ObamaCare upon an unwilling nation. But what if there’s no “crisis” in the first place?
This month, Gallup released a scientific survey that is a critical component in any health care policy discussion. In what must come as a devastating shock for those who defend ObamaCare, an astonishing 82% of Americans rate their health care as “good” or “excellent.” Some 40% place their health care in the “excellent” category, which exceeds the previous high of 38% and the long-term average of 34%. Even those who don’t possess health insurance (which must be distinguished from actual health care) rate their health care “good” or “excellent” by a 53% majority.
Clearly, there is no health care “crisis,” only a lot of ObamaCare “waste.”
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