As the Democrats bid a tearful farewell to using abortion as a winning campaign issue, they need to manufacture a replacement. So they have come up with contraceptives and how those mean Republicans want to restrict a women’s access to them. It’s a lie and they know it, but hey, elections are at stake.

Some say it began with George Stephanopoulos’ bizarre questioning of Mitt Romney on a state’s right to ban contraceptives during one of the presidential debates. Some say it goes back further to a Virginia Senate race between Tim Kaine and George Allen. The problem for Democrats is that they used to run on an abortion platform and public opinion gave them a ten point edge on that subject. The polls have shifted and now it is a ten point loser. So what’s a liberal to do? Well, people still favor birth control, so let’s make it look like Republicans are against that! Brilliant!

The trick is how to do it. How about putting a Trojan Horse in the middle of ObamaCare? Have ObamaCare require contraceptives even by the Catholic Church. Conservatives and Republicans will object and voila, we have a campaign issue. But what are we really talking about?

Access to Contraceptives or Free Recreational Sex?

The First Amendment to the Constitution states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…

If it is the Catholic Church’s fundamental teaching that artificial birth control is immoral, Congress is forbidden by the Constitution to pass any law that interferes with that. But the main stream media and the left are trying to twist this into the Catholic Church, conservatives, and Republicans trying to deny a woman’s access to birth control. But let’s examine what they are really demanding.

What is the purpose of birth control? It is to allow the enjoyment of sex without the fear of the natural purpose of sex, procreation. Okay, so it is not about marriage, it is not about family, it is about fun. The left wants no restrictions on a woman’s access to recreational sex. As a believer in individual liberty, my personal views aside, that’s fine. But don’t make me pay for it! If a woman and her partner cannot afford the $10 for a month’s worth of recreational sex, don’t pick my pocket for it. Get a second job if you have to (we’re talking about 90 minutes per month at minimum wage). Is ObamaCare going to pay for my wine or my green’s fees so I can drink a glass of red for my heart and play a round of golf for exercise? Both of those activities provide better health benefits than sex, and if the two sex partners don’t know themselves that well it can be down right dangerous for them between disease and violence.

The Wrong Direction

Instead of declaring free recreational sex as a right, perhaps it’s time to look at the incontrovertible evidence. President Obama is obsessed with income inequality and yet he goes against the formula for addressing it.  The evidence shows that the formula to get out of poverty and stay out is:

1. Graduate high school
2. Get a job, any job, and stay employed
3. Get married before you have children.

Yet what is this president’s program?

1. Favor teachers over students. Fight school vouchers, fight Scott Walker in Wisconsin trying to get public sector unions under control including teachers.
2. Add crushing regulations and massive spending on to an economy where the official end of the recession was almost three years ago. It doesn’t feel like it because of all the baggage this administration has loaded on it. At the same time in Reagan’s first term, the economy was growing at over 8% compared to this president’s 1%-2%.
3. He gave one good speech on a father’s responsibility, but his signature program ObamaCare is promoting free recreational sex and he and the rest of the Democrats are campaigning on it.

Obama has a better formula, tax the most productive among us. Ever feel like we are living the Decline of the Roman Empire. We may have one last change to stop the train wreck this November.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

At the conclusion of Newt Gingrich’s speech as CPAC a colleague and I discussed the Republican chances for the White House. That day we heard from Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney and Newt and we both agreed that winning in the fall should not be hard. But a couple of conditions had to be met.

The most important condition of all was that no matter who won the nomination, we all had to coalesce behind the nominee and fight hard to win. What that means is that Mitt and Newt have to stop the scorched earth personal attacks. So far, Santorum has avoided getting down in the mud, but with his new ascendancy, he will now be a prime target. Stop it and stop it now. It’s not about you. It’s about dislodging the guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Tell us about your vision and stop hanging labels on each other. Forget the polls showing Obama beating all comers. In January 1980, Gallup had Carter beating Reagan 63% – 32%. This is how Time magazine saw it March of that year:

National opinion polls continue to show Carter leading Reagan by an apparently comfortable margin of about 25%. They also show that more moderate Republicans like Ford would run better against the President. This suggests that Reagan is not the strongest G.O.P. choice for the November election and that he clearly faces an uphill battle. . .

Carter, for all his problems, has the power of incumbency. As President, he can react to challenges by changing the direction of the whole Government, which he has done recently by attempting to balance the budget in the coming fiscal year, a course urged by all Republican candidates. Carter is an undeniably deft—and extremely lucky—politician. He also is a relatively known quantity in the White House, whereas the inexperienced Reagan would require a definite leap of faith by voters supporting him. Says Northwestern University Political Scientist Louis Masotti: “There’s a variation on the old cliché: you don’t change horses’ asses in midstream. You’ve got one, and at least you know its contours.”

Newt Gingrich

Gingrich was on his game at CPAC. He clearly outlined what he would do, within hours, of taking the oath of office. It was vintage Newt. It was Contract with America stuff and the crowd ate it up. This is the good Newt, who is very good. Besides putting down the sword against Romney, Newt needs to clean out his closet. Whatever he did for Freddie Mac, whether good or bad, get it out there now. Just saying you were a consultant is not enough. You can bet the Democrats know what he did and if it looks bad they will protect it like it is gold in anticipation of Newt winning the nomination. Then they will devise a scheme, with their allies in the main stream media, to release it about two weeks before the general election so that it will have maximum negative impact against Gingrich and the Republicans.

If Gingrich can get any bad news out now it will die down and be old news by election day. There is a risk, that it may kill his chance at the nomination, but for the sake of the country, it is better sooner than later.

Rick Santorum

Santorum has done a good job of laying out the moral argument for his candidacy. He has to shift his focus more on where he wants to take America rather than in the dismal place we find ourselves. He has to take a cue from Reagan and Thatcher and express an optimism that will engage his fellow Americans.

He has to avoid joining the Romney – Gingrich food fight. So far he has stayed above the fray, but he is climbing in the polls and that makes him a prime target, particularly for the Romney attack machine. He has to stay clean and ride the wave of disgust that people are feeling for all the mud-slinging.

Mitt Romney

Romney has to stop the attacks. He seems to be the one to fire the first spit ball. In one of the debates, when Santorum called for a ceasefire, Gingrich seemed inclined to go along, but Mitt couldn’t resist one last shot, which Gingrich naturally could not leave alone and off we went. Negative campaigning does work up to the point where we become sick of it and then it is a pox upon all your houses.

Romney also has to loosen up and lose his perpetual sunny disposition, that seems somewhat manufactured. It would be refreshing to see him without the perpetual smile and see some genuine concern for his fellow Americans who are having a tough time. If he doesn’t connect with the common folks, he will never climb above the 25% or so that typically vote for him.

Coming Together and Being Gracious

To get everyone to close ranks behind the eventual winner, we need to care for the ultimate losers. Toward that end I would like to propose a fallback job for each of the four remaining candidates in the administration of the winner. Here they are.

For Ron Paul, I would suggest appointing him Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank. He could then freely find out what the heck they are doing there and make recommendations up to and including ending the Fed. For Newt Gingrich, I would suggest appointing him UN Ambassador. What better way to follow up a speech by Ahmadinejad than a critique by Gingrich destroying everything the little weasel said? For Rick Santorum, Secretary of State. He seems to understand there is more to the world than just the Middle East and that we have some work to do in our own hemisphere. For Romney, I would suggest Secretary of the Treasury. Bain Capital was not Goldman Sachs. I think between his finance background and his government executive experience as governor of Massachusetts, he could greatly help get us on the right track.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

We’ve heard the fawning of the mainstream media over the Occupy Wall Street movement. We’ve heard the leaders of the Democratic Party, who lambasted the Tea Party with the most vile and vitriolic language, dreamily coo over the OWS people as being true grass-roots, not AstroTurf. What is the truth? The truth can be very disturbing.

Citizens United, Andrew Breitbart and Steve Bannon are in the final stages of a film that rips the mask off of Occupy Wall Street and tells the story, a war story as Bannon puts it, of the puppet masters and the mostly harmless followers that they used.

Lee Stranahan and Brandon Darby moved among the OWS groups and because they used to be activists of the left, they know how to speak the language and not stand out as most conservatives would. They went to Zucotti Park to talk to the protesters. ACORN was paying people $100 a pop to  homeless people to go to Zucotti Park to add to the protesters numbers. Does anyone know of Tea Party members who gathered by the hundreds of thousands in Washington being paid by any group?

The OWS organizer’s goal is to knock down the Tea Party and build up the Occupy Wall Street groups. OWS was the left’s answer to the Tea Party. The main stream media likes to mention the Tea Party every time they report on the OWS groups. But OWS is violent and dangerous. The Tea Party is only dangerous if you believe their embrace of the Constitution is dangerous.

Take a look at the film’s trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqxA9LMa_0c

Many of the people who went out to protest with the OWS groups were innocents. They were disgusted with the Wall Street bailouts, as were many Tea Party members, and their outrage was sincere. But this was planned and they were being used by the far left puppet-masters behind the movement.

The film is targeted to be released in April. The film is currently unrated, but they are editing it so that it can be widely distributed, but the raw footage is just that, raw. Andrew Breitbart expressed his desire to keep it X-rated so that the full impact of how extreme this movement is, can be displayed. The producers will make sure, however, that it can be distributed more widely. For more information go to the film’s website (http://occupyunmasked.com)

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Don’t pay attention to what you are hearing from Obama’s supporters. What they really want may be the opposite of what they are saying.

Let’s start with some basic math. Forty percent of Americans self-identify themselves as conservative, twenty percent as liberal, leaving forty percent in the middle. For a conservative to win, they have to hold their base (40%) and pick up twenty-five percent of those in the middle (25% of 40% equals 10%). That will give them fifty percent of the vote. Liberals, on the other hand, need to hold their base (20%) and pick up seventy-five percent of those in the middle. The last time the Republicans nominated a true conservative, Ronald Reagan it was two blow-out victories. Liberals will argue that the time before that Republicans picked Barry Goldwater and it was a blow-out the other way. This is true, but I believe there were some mitigating circumstances. First, if Goldwater was elected he would have been the third U.S. president in less than three years. America might not have been ready for that. Then there was the famous Johnson ad suggesting that Goldwater was ready to start a nuclear war.

What is different since then? America is ready for a new president, as they were when Jimmy Carter was in office. The is no threat of an all out nuclear war, although there are nuclear dangers. Last, I turn to a famous quote by Winston Churchill, “If you are twenty, and you are not a liberal you have no heart. If you are forty, and you are not a conservative, you have no brain.” We are a more conservative country now.

Mitt Romney

I believe Obama would prefer to run against Romney. Conservatives do not embrace Mitt Romney. So right out of the gate, he is at risk of losing part of his base. To succeed he has to pick up more of the middle. In an Obama vs. Romney match-up, don’t think the race card will not be played. It will be done in a subtle way. For example, the main stream media will probably run more stories about race in America, inequality, unemployment among minorities, suggesting it is racially motivated. If enough white guilt can be kept alive, Obama gets another shot. In a debate, Obama can go right after Romney and say I based ObamaCare on RomneyCare, and don’t deny it. Romney is immediately on the defensive. Obama will try to narrow the differences between him and Romney. As the governor of a blue state, Romney had to take some positions  to get elected. Obama will highlight those. If he can make the case of who do you want to vote for, the honest upfront liberal, or the pseudo liberal in Republican clothing, it will be another Obama-McCain match.

Rick Perry

Rick Perry has stronger conservative credentials, but has lost support over his immigration stance. That means an even tougher hill to climb, capturing more of the middle with stronger conservative credentials than Romney. The other negative is that Perry’s debate performances have been dismal. I don’t think Obama will have a hard time pushing Perry’s hot buttons in a debate and if he can bait him into an outburst, Perry’s done.

Herman Cain

I think Herman Cain is who Obama’s team fears the most. Conservatives are embracing Cain, so he seems to be in the best position so far to hold the base. The race card is out of play. Cain has been working on getting his positions down on policy, but when gets it, he knows his material. He does not need a teleprompter to deliver a speech. He has executive experience like Romney and Perry, but not in government. Which could be a bad thing, or it could be a good thing. The bad thing is that government experience helps in knowing what levers to pull. The good thing is that you don’t accept that’s the way it has always been, you ask why? If no one can give you a good reason, stop doing it. That could be huge with today’s bloated government. I have no concerns about a one-on-one debate between Obama and Cain.

The Abortion Issue

There is a big kerfuffle over what Cain said in response to a question on abortion. He said it was a personal decision. Here is the actual clip;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPKYYDefMV4

Cain makes a couple of points and Piers Morgan tries to set the usual trap. Cain clearly and emphatically says he is pro-life. He also talks about the federal government’s role in abortion since, after all, he is running for a federal office. Abortion is not in the Constitution, either for or against. There is no Constitutional right to kill your child. Prior to the disastrous Roe v. Wade decision, it was left up to the states, which is where it should be. So Morgan goes for the trap, find a difficult personal dilemma, put your guest in that role and try to get them to contradict himself. Cain didn’t bite, but he fell short in his explanation. What he later explained he meant by a personal decision was that when faced with such a dilemma, you are going to follow your beliefs, talk about it with your family, maybe get spiritual counseling, but the last thing you will probably do is a Google search on what the law is. As Reid Buckley wrote about his family in An American Family: The Buckleys,  “The solidarity that our parents fostered in their children was remarkable. God, Family, Country…and in that order.” You do what you believe is right and sort out the consequences later.

The Media

The media is attacking Cain because he is the front-runner and they see him as a big threat to Obama, mainly because they will lose the race card, their favorite tool. After all what can Janeane Garafolo say now? What can they attack the Tea Party about? Obama will be forced to run on his record, his healthcare, his immigration policy.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Photo by roberthufstutter

Throughout out the Republican campaign process, Herman Cain has been portrayed as an interesting candidate, but with no serious chance of winning the Republican nomination. What I found was the most curious logic was on the O’Reilly Factor the other night. Bill’s reasoning that Herman Cain won’t win the nomination was because the most important thing to Republicans was to unseat Obama and that independents won’t vote for Cain because he is too conservative.

A 2010 Gallup Poll showed that about 42% of Americans described themselves as conservative, 20% as liberal and about 35% moderate. So, if Herman Cain were to win the Republican nomination, independents would not vote for him because he is too conservative, but where does that lead? It would lead you to the conclusion that they would vote for Barack Obama instead and where, exactly, does he fall on the political spectrum? No American president is or was further left on the political spectrum than Barack Obama. So given a choice between a strong conservative candidate and a strong liberal candidate we are supposed to believe that, naturally, moderates are going to vote for the far left guy. If you check your math, a conservative in America today only has to hold his base and grab 25% of the moderates to win. A progressive candidate has to hold his base and grab 75% of the moderates to win.

But Republicans keep falling into the trap that O’Reilly is claiming. We say, uh oh, a conservative can’t win because the main stream media tells us that, so we go wobbly and pick someone who appeals to the moderates. What we end up with is a liberal (the Democrat) and liberal light (the moderate Republican) and we get our clocks cleaned (see John McCain).

I would have no problem seeing Herman Cain on the debate platform facing off against Barack Obama. In these troubled times, who better than someone who has actually turned around two companies (Burger King in Philadelphia and Godfather’s pizza). He learned the Burger King business by going through the company’s training “boot camp” where he actually worked at the grill. What has Barack Obama ever worked at in the private sector? Herman Cain can give an inspirational talk for 30-45 minutes without a teleprompter. I don’t know about you but I felt pretty embarrassed to listen to the master communicator, Barack Obama, stop in the middle of  a speech to tell the teleprompter operator to move the speech up a few lines. Barack Obama thinks he’s the Wizard of Oz, but he should turn around to see that the curtain has fallen to the floor.

Another knock on Cain was his lack of knowledge about foreign policy. How much did Bill Clinton know about national defense, other than how to dodge the draft, before he was elected president? How much did Barack Obama know about anything before he was elected? They are not the same in their experiences. The presidency is an executive position, and what counts is executive experience. Governors have it, generals have it, CEOs have it; legislators do not. What a legislator decides to do carries no weight unless he can get a large number of fellow legislators to agree and go along with him. Everything an executive decides to do has an impact, some large, some small but an impact nonetheless.

We are in the mess we are in because Obama didn’t understand that coming into office and he has yet to learn it. His signature program, ObamaCare, was just thrown over the wall to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to finish the details and when it was done it was an abomination.  When in doubt, Obama goes into campaign mode. Herman Cain comes up with solutions. They may not be perfect, they may undergo some changes, but they are serious solutions to real problems, not just another transfer the wealth program.

Herman Cain deserves a serious look for who he is, what he stands for, and what he has accomplished. Don’t write him off because some political pundits think they know the formula for winning. If you don’t believe me, ask Marco Rubio, or Rand Paul, or Bob Turner, or Mike Lee.

That’s my opinion; I’s like to know yours.Please comment below.

Photo by Robert Scoble

And I’ll promise you this: I’ll work every day to make Washington, D.C. as inconsequential in your life as I can. And at the same time, we’ll be freeing our families and small businesses and states from the burdensome and costly federal government so those groups can create, innovate and succeed. — From Rick Perry’s speech announcing his run for the presidency.

That is the pledge of a person who deeply respects the Constitution. It is the sentiment of a person who understands the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution.

Rick Perry believes as the Founding Fathers did that the purpose of the national government is to do those few things that are best handled as a single nation, but then leave everything else to the states and the people. For the most part Washington should be inconsequential to our lives. Instead the leviathan has become anything but inconsequential  reaching deeper into our lives and with every law, every rule, every regulation, we lose more and more of our liberties.

Washington should be responsible, first and foremost, for our common defense and yet our borders are unprotected and those who come here illegally are shielded, and given benefits. Our president travels the world apologizing to those who would cause us harm, emboldening them. Of the enumerated powers granted to the federal government in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, seven of them pertain to national defense; more than any other category. But in our daily lives we should not have to think about national defense.

Other powers granted to Congress to act as one government concern naturalization, bankruptcies, the coining (not printing) of money, standards of weights and measures, to punish counterfeiting, establishment of the post office, patents and copyrights, and providing for a federal court system. Are any of these things something we should worry about each day as we get out of bed? The areas that are a concern are taxes and borrowing. However, if Washington stuck to what the Founders envisioned, taxes and debt would be an inconsequential concern.

But they are a concern because of the explosive growth of government brought to you by the Progressive movement. Many of their programs have failed to deliver on their promise and have saddled us and future generations with enormous debts. We are in the midst of an economic malaise because the tentacles of government have choked the life out of small and medium businesses, the very engines of job creation. Instead of Washington being inconsequential, there is hardly a day that goes by that a business owner does not worry about what regulation he is not following, what penalty is lurking around the corner, how quickly the crushing weight of our national government may come crashing down around him.

Private businesses don’t want to go public, a step they might need to grow, because of the burden of Sarbanes Oxley regulation. Banks have to find new ways to make money because Dodd-Frank has impacted their credit and debit card lines of business. Power companies and in turn manufacturing businesses that need affordable power are trying to calculate the cost of EPA regulations that will kill ten percent of our electric generating capacity. The National Labor Relations Board is dictating to businesses where they can or cannot open factories. Hardly inconsequential. Rick Perry is the first presidential politician who has spoken out strongly about where to draw the line between what the federal government can do and what they cannot.

Freedom

Rick Perry also understands the meaning of the First Amendment and the words, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Saying a prayer before a meeting or asking for a blessing to play your best football game without getting hurt is not the same as passing a law through Congress establishing the Church of the United States of America. I fully support the right of atheists to stick their fingers in their ears and holler “LA, LA, LA, LA, LA…” until the prayer is over. But I do not accept their marching into court to prohibit the free exercise of religion by anyone else. If you don’t understand the difference then you need to go back to grammar school and learn, once again, how a law is made. As Ann Coulter points out in her book Demonic, when the term “a wall of separation between church and state” was written by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptists, said Baptists were living in Connecticut where the state religion, you read that right, the state religion was Congregationalism. You see, the First Amendment restricts Congress, not the states.

Mitt Romney has taken a veiled swipe at Perry by talking about career politicians having gotten us into this mess and they don’t understand how to get us out of it. But Romney also had a spell in government as a one term governor of Massachusetts and while he turned that states finances around quickly he also left behind RomneyCare. He still seems to claim that that universal health care worked while ObamaCare doesn’t. It is not a strong argument. Romney has also changed his stripes on a number of issues and there is no reason to think that he won’t change them back. After all, he has not given a reason for why he changed in the first place, other than for political expediency.

Perry, on the other hand was elected governor in Texas three times. Job growth in Texas has been strong, he was able to put curbs on personal injury lawyers and their runaway lawsuits, which has resulted in malpractice insurance premiums on doctors dropping and the number of doctors applying for licenses in Texas to soar.

We can expect the main stream media to attack Perry mercilessly to try to reach a point where Barack Obama’s odious job as president might be palatable for another four years. But the media and Obama may just find out that Perry knows how to counter-punch, and Obama has a lot more vulnerabilities to protect than Perry. It is not a lock and there is a long way to go, but right now, Rick Perry is someone I can support.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Photo by reinvented

The stock market is bouncing up and down like Fatty Arbuckle on a bungee cord. The job numbers are just as dismal as they were last week. The CBO says we can expect unemployment to continue north of eight percent until 2016. Is it just me or is the honeymoon over?

The last few times I parked myself in front of the television to await the next important address from the president, I noticed an empty podium as I looked at my watch and wondered when the president would arrive. It felt a bit annoying. I don’t know why it should because I don’t remember how prompt President Reagan was, or President Clinton or either of the Presedents Bush, so why would it feel particularly annoying with this president? Maybe the main stream media is at fault. After all, wasn’t President Reagan an “amiable dunce”? He probably lost his notes. We all know President Bush, despite two Ivy League degrees was also an idiot. He probably got lost along the way. President Clinton, that sly devil, he was probably straightening his tie and making sure everything else was in place, if you know what I mean. But President Obama, we are told, is brilliant. He is also super cool There is also something about the super cool, they like to remind you that they are cool, so you wait for them. They get there when they feel like it. So with the press corps assembled, millions of television viewers listening to the pundits while the picture-in-picture at the top of the screen shows the vacant podium, the cool president is letting us cool our heels. He will saunter down the hallway toward the microphones when he is good and ready, because when you are cool, that’s how you do it.

When the work day is done it’s time for a little basketball or if it’s a weekend some golf. Vacations? We have to go the Vineyard, baby. People criticized Bush for his vacations and they may well have been longer than Obama’s, but Bush went home to Texas to do chores. Obama’s not going home to Chicago to paint the bathroom. Does the fact that America is hurting not bother him at all? If it does, he is too cool to show it.

President Obama said it was a hell of a mess he inherited and we needed to spend trillions of dollars to stimulate the economy or unemployment would rise to nine percent. When the program failed and all we had to look forward to was finding a way to pay the bill, President Obama laughed about “shovel ready” not being as shovel ready as we thought. Big joke, but the joke’s on us.

Do you remember a supposedly cool kid when you were growing up and how he bragged about either the things that he had or the places he had been or the championships he had won, where he used to live, only to find out it was all a crock? Do you also remember another kid who was suspicious of the new guy all along? Well, the first group that was enthralled with the new kid voted for Obama. The skeptical kids did not. The grumblings about this president are getting louder even from his supporters.

So what does Obama do? Well he tells us he has a super duper plan to create jobs that he will tell us about as soon as he gets back from vacation. It seems like he doesn’t want to come back. He’s just not that into us anymore. He has accumulated some gray hairs, and he would really rather be back on the campaign trail, with one reason being the re-runs of his old campaign criticisms of Bush are coming back to bite him. He enjoys the crowds, the adulation, winning the job, but when it comes to doing the job he neither has the skill, the experience, or the interest. He’s just not that into it anymore.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Photo by Ted Abbott

Can we now drop any pretense that Joe Biden is anything but a CINO (Catholic in Name Only)? On his latest state visit to China, Biden gave a speech that should be characterized as other than “just Joe being Joe.”

We already know that Joe Biden is cheaper than dirt when it comes to his own money and sharing it with the least of his brothers. His financial disclosure records are proof enough of that. Recently Vice President Biden attended Sunday mass at a church in Southampton on Long Island. A friend of mine reported that when the collection plate was passed around, Biden kept his hands a safe distance away from his pockets, but he is quick to preach that the government is entitled to as much of your money as it needs.

Biden is also pro-abortion, something that goes against basic Catholic teaching. But if that were not enough to hide behind the fig leaf of “I’m personally opposed to abortion but I shouldn’t impose my views, yada, yada, yada,” he gives a speech in China saying he understands their one child per family policy. This is a policy where the government of China will force families to abort any pregnancies if that family already has a child. As American he should strongly protest such an intrusion on human rights. As a Catholic he should condemn it in the strongest possible terms.

So the next time the main stream media wants to hang a shred of decency on some immoral practice because Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi supports it, just leave out the part that they claim to be Catholics.

That is my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Photo by BlueRobot

A contentious battle has concluded today with the passage of the debt limit deal. It was a hard fought battle where no one is entirely happy with the outcome. Before we leave this field of battle, we should take stock of the accomplishments and the players involved.

President Obama

President Obama is damaged goods. His poll numbers have been falling due to the economy and he was disengaged in the debt limit debate until the very end. He has angered the left, the right, and the center. According to Scott Rasmussen, the only reason his approval rating is not lower is that he still has strong, albeit reluctant, support from Democrats. The economy is not likely to improve with him at the helm and the silver lining of the flaws in the debt deal, is it won’t help him on the economy although he managed to push another round of this past the election.

Vice President Joe Biden

Gaffe machine Joe Biden went beyond the gaffe by saying the Tea Party was a band of terrorists. Terrorists? Biden and the main stream media get all clutched up when it comes to calling real terrorists, terrorists, but easily call patriots and a large percentage of Americans, terrorists. It is a badge of dishonor he will carry for a long time.

Senator Harry Reid

Senator Harry Reid has proved, that while an adept parliamentarian in using procedures to try to play Goliath against “David” John Boehner, he just can’t get it done. He couldn’t or chose not to pass a budget for over 800 days. President Obama’s own budget went down to ignominious defeat 97-0 in his chamber. He didn’t bring Cut, Cap, and Balance up for a vote in the Senate because to do so would be lose-lose. If he brought it up he would have to defeat it. If he defeated it, many of the  twenty-three Democrat senators up for election in 2012, would  be on record for more spending and against sound fiscal policy and against two-thirds of Americans who support it. When he and President Obama hit that ball back over the net by saying Boehner walked out of the talks, that Obama has been left at the alter, etc., Boehner couldn’t just ignore it, from a political perspective, he had to respond. And so he prepared another round to put the ball back in the Democrats court. Reid tried to gut that proposal to stuff it with his own and send it back to the House but Boehner outflanked him by copying Reid’s bill and put it up for a vote, the result being it went down in flames. Reid could not even get his own version passed in the Senate. In the end the negotiations proceeded with Obama, McConnell, and Boehner; Reid was sidelined.

Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi was Obama’s right hand legislator slamming through ObamaCare, stimulus, TARP, etc. She has been essentially muzzled. When the final deal was negotiated she agreed with one of her members that this was a “Satan sandwich with a side of Satan fries.” Satan? Write that one down folks, it will come in handy along with , “We have to pass the bill to find out what is in it.” She voted for the deal, but told her members to “vote your conscience.” Sounds like “every man for himself.”

John Boehner

Sell out. Traitor. He got rolled. He is done. Not strong praise for playing the role of David, controlling one-third of the legislative power against two-thirds. But he must be doing something right when the New York Times editorial board screams

There is little to like about the tentative agreement between Congressional leaders and the White House except that it happened at all. The deal would avert a catastrophic government default, immediately and probably through the end of 2012. The rest of it is a nearly complete capitulation to the hostage-taking demands of Republican extremists.

Terrorists, hostage taking, brinkmanship. One need only look back to where this started: just raise the debt limit without condition just like every other debt limit increase. The taxes that Obama and the left wanted, were declared a non-starter; cuts equal to or greater than the amount of the debt limit increase were held firm; a vote on a balanced budget amendment in both houses and although it is not likely to pass, every member of Congress will have to go on record where they stand on it. Would this have even seen the light of day in Reid’s Senate without this deal?

There is a lot not to like in the deal, but it is a lot better than where it started. Most important is that it has brought the debt and the consequences of dealing with it into laser focus. It is up to the Tea Party to keep it there over the next fourteen months with a simple question, “If you want the spending to continue, elect Democrats; if you want to get our fiscal house in order, elect Republicans.”

 Mitch McConnell

McConnell also gets scorched for selling out, making deals to undermine real reform, etc. McConnell is the equal if not the superior parliamentarian to Reid. Many of us do not understand how the “sausage” is made in Congress and do not like it when we see it, but McConnell does. Remember when there were only forty Republican senators in the Senate it was McConnell who held them all together, even the RINOs, until Scott Brown was elected to be able to block legislation. It was McConnell who checked Harry Reid’s maneuver to sneak through his version of a deal with a simple majority. It prompted the news conference with Reid, Dick Durbin, and Chuck Schumer to chant, filibuster, filibuster! But McConnell and his deft maneuvering has been holding down the fort until reinforcements arrive.

The Tea Party

The Tea Party was not in complete agreement on this deal but everyone should take something positive out of this. This debate would not have happened at all without them. This would have passed quietly with no strings attached without the efforts of the Tea Party. Some members took a hard line that there should be no increase in the debt limit at all. Others argued caution that the political reality of only controlling one-third of the legislative process meant fighting for the best deal possible, without seeking a “bridge too far,” and triggering Treasury not sending out some checks. If that happened, which checks those would be is anyone’s guess. If the most political damage could be done and tagged to the Tea Party through that process, the left could turn a big defeat into a big victory. With seventy percent of the public disgusted with the process in Congress, if the blame could be hung on those “stubborn, inflexible, terrorist” Tea Party members, instead of having momentum to pick up more seats in November 2012, it could be turned around to “get those crazies out of there,” which would mean electing more RINOs and more Democrats and the disaster that would follow. The spirited debate in  the Tea Party was a good thing, one side kept pulling for a better deal, the other provided enough resistance to keep it from going over the edge. The goal is to get as close to the edge as possible without going over.

Where We Go From Here

Some are saying the deal will allow tax increases when the joint committee convenes. Is it possible? Yes. Is it likely? No. Boehner and McConnell, if they are smart, will appoint hardliners to the committee. My suggestions: Paul Ryan, Allen West, Connie Mack from the House and Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and Jim DeMint from the Senate. I believe there is zero chance that they would vote for a tax increase, regardless of what the Democrats want. Even if such a calamity would come to pass, it would still have to get through the House and I don’t see that happening.

Where do we go from here? We need to get more like minded people elected to Congress and the White House. This deal was by no means a great deal, but it was far better than no deal. We often lament that many people in America are just not focused on what is going on in Washington and what it means to us. This debt debate was front and center on the national news for weeks. This is something we need to leverage and expand on. We have come a long was since the fall of 2008 in getting people involved, getting them interested, and getting them educated. This event is an opportunity to get more people enraged and engaged. We must seize the opportunity, formulate the message, and drive it home as we close in on November 2012.

Consider if we had a great budget deal, everything we wanted. The stock market would rebound, the economy would start to recover with some uncertainty lifted, and if the employment picture improved, who do you think would take credit for it? It would be Obama crowing all day, every day, how it was a tough struggle, but he alone saved the day. Everything bad was Bush’s fault, but everything good was his doing. Therefore American must obviously give him four more years. A imperfect deal is a gift. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth; ride it to the finish line.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.

Drawing by Red State

Okay, so we have heard Harry Reid, flanked by Durbin and Schumer, scold the Republicans for stonewalling. Today we learn the news that another Democrat was bluff called to find they have nothing.

The Republicans passed a budget. Harry Reid didn’t even bother, for over two years he didn’t even try. President Obama presented a budget, pulled it back, then submitted  another. Harry Reid put it up for a vote and couldn’t pass it; he didn’t even vote for it himself. No one did. It failed 97-0.

The Republicans passed a solution called Cut, Cap, and Balance. Harry Reid held a vote to not vote on it. There is sat in the Senate while President Obama and Harry Reid said the Republicans wouldn’t compromise, they were the captives of the Tea Party. But the real question is compromise with what? Reid had nothing.

The Republicans passed another solution and sent it to the Senate and again, Harry Reid tabled it. We then had the somber press conference where Reid, Durbin and Schumer talked about those stubborn Republican extremists. Reid then crafted his own solution and the House immediately put it for a vote. What a concept, actually voting on a measure from the other side. It went down in flames and it was bipartisan 246-173. Now the test was whether Harry Reid could pass Harry Reid’s bill in the chamber Harry Reid controls. No. Or should I say that President Obama stopped tweeting long enough to call Reid and tell him to hold off on the vote, giving Harry a fig leaf to save him from the embarrassment of not being able to pass anything.

What is galling is how the main stream media is lapping up whatever slop the president and Harry Reid serve up. They can’t get anything passed and somehow it is the House that passes bill after bill to govern, that is holding things up.

November 2012 is coming and Harry Reid will remain in the Senate regardless, but if we are smart we can push him to a back bench by replacing enough Democratic senators and then we can finally get our fiscal house in order.

That’s my opinion; I’d like to know yours. Please comment below.