Erick Erickson's Blog, page 197

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words

I'm Filling in for Herman Cain Tonight

I'm filling in for Herman Cain on WSB tonight from 7pm to 10pm ET. You can listen on 750AM in a lot of places around the country (it comes in well at night) and also 95.5 FM in Atlanta.

I'm declaring tonight Wide Open Wednesday and opening the phone lines. The call in number is 1-800-WSB-TALK.

You can listen live online at http://wsbradio.com or at http://www.hermancain.org/.

Consider this an open thread.

Wednesday's Edition of the 2012 Poll

OK. Rick Perry and Rick Santorum, both struggling to crack 200 votes, are off the list.

There are ten names left. Take your pick.

Who is your 2012 candidate of choice?




Who is your 2012 candidate of choice?




Haley Barbour




John Bolton




Herman Cain




Mitch Daniels




Newt Gingrich




Mike Huckabee




Sarah Palin




Tim Pawlenty




Mike Pence




Mitt Romney





  




Free polls from Pollhost.com

Lindsey Graham Gives Away the Game

There has been a lot of speculation this week about why the GOP rolled over in the Senate on virtually every issue. From Don't Ask, Don't Tell's repeal to START to you name it — the GOP became the party of capitulation. So much so that even Lindsey Graham is blasting the Senate GOP "for a 'capitulation … of dramatic proportions' to Democrats and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in the lame-duck Congress."

In his statement about why the GOP folded like a cheap suit, Graham gives away the game. He says, "I can understand the Democrats being afraid of the new Republicans; I can't understand Republicans being afraid of the new Republicans."

As I've said for a while, with many people disagreeing, the 2010 election was about moving the Senate GOP right, not moving the Senate to the GOP. This past week makes my case for me.

The Senate GOP is decidedly mushy on many fronts and unwilling for really tough fights except in odd circumstances. The Senate GOP understands that Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, Pat Toomey, and Marco Rubio are headed to the Senate as reinforcements for Jim DeMint. They are deeply worried because of it.

Why worry? Because the Senate GOP wants to cut deals with the Senate Democrats and they know that just Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and Jim DeMint will be able to force deals much more conservative than the Senate GOP is.

So Senate Republicans decided to roll over on big issues now knowing that next year they will be forced further right than they might be comfortable.

Here's a golden truth some of you won't like, but is true nonetheless: Mike Lee and Rand Paul are worth ten regular Republican Senators any day of the week. They'll fight. And they'll win.

Morning Briefing for December 22, 2010

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 22, 2010

Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.

From all of us at RedState to each and every one of you, have a very Merry Christmas! I'll see you in your inbox again next Tuesday and I'll be online every day at RedState.com

God bless,

— Erick

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while[a] Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.

So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

Luke 2:1-7

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

1. Lindsey Graham Gives Away the Game

2. Obama administration caves on indefinite detention.

3. The Obama FCC has regulated the Internet

4. It's Cens-mas!

5. The green movement of no

6. Harvard's disingenuous Solomon Amendment statement.

———————————————————————-

1. Lindsey Graham Gives Away the Game

There has been a lot of speculation this week about why the GOP rolled over in the Senate on virtually every issue. From Don't Ask, Don't Tell's repeal to START to you name it — the GOP became the party of capitulation. So much so that even Lindsey Graham is blasting the Senate GOP "for a 'capitulation … of dramatic proportions' to Democrats and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in the lame-duck Congress."

In his statement about why the GOP folded like a cheap suit, Graham gives away the game.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

2. Obama administration caves on indefinite detention.

They're readying an executive order right now that will confirm that certain detainees - read: the murderous, terrorist scum that we already weren't releasing - can be continued to be held indefinitely without trial. The fig leaf here is that the new proceedings (unlike those of the wicked, wicked Bush administration!) will be 'more adversarial' - which means whatever you want it to mean, of course - and that lawyers for the murderous, terrorist scum can ask again after the administration refuses to let said murderous, terrorist scum go the first time. Maybe even every year.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

3. The Obama FCC has regulated the Internet

Today the FCC defied the courts, the Congress, and a clear national consensus in favor of an open Internet, when it claimed the authority to regulate the Internet and passed so-called Net Neutrality regulations.

On a 3-2 vote, FCC Democrats Mignon Clyburn, Michael Copps, and Chairman Julius Genachowski voted to pass not just new Net Neutrality regulations, but an entire "framework" for future government meddling online. Republicans Robert McDowell and Meredith Baker voted against the plan.

Reports are already circulating that at least one major industry firm will sue to overturn the illegal regulations, and of course Congressional Republicans will rightly rake the FCC over the coals next year. However that said, today's result is a crippling defeat to the radicals. There weren't three votes for a much larger power grab that the FCC could have attempted today.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

4. It's Cens-mas!

The Census Bureau today released the official reapportionment figures from the 2010 Census, which will determine (1) what states gain and lose House seats and thus will be prime targets for redistricting and (2) what states correspondingly gain and lose votes in the Electoral College for 2012.

By and large, the news was good for the GOP.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

5. The green movement of no

The Washington Post has a great story about the meltdown of the green movement. It is about the need of the movement to refocus because, at a critical point, voters — you — rejected their ideas and the people who carried their water in Washington and in the state capitals. What really struck me was that the Sierra Club is shifting focus from raising the cost of energy in Washington to raising it in the states and making less of it.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

6. Harvard's disingenuous Solomon Amendment statement.

ith the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell almost certain now to be passed into law*, there has been some discussion of one thing that conservatives and Republicans will absolutely require to have happen: to wit, the ending of the Ivy League's continuing campaign against the military by forbidding ROTC programs on their campuses. Said campaign absolutely flaunts the intent of Congress (as per the 'Solomon Amendment'), but has been generally tacitly tolerated by the government while the larger issue of gays serving openly in the military was still an open question. Which, again, it no longer is.

But, - various articles to the contrary - the Ivy League's response to news that the Senate has voted to repeal is not in fact acceptable.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

The Tuesday Edition of the 2012 Vote

Jeb Bush is out of the poll, having been the lowest vote getter. Added in today are both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. They were left out in an oversight and the conspiracy theorists for Newt in particular have put Mo-Rons, those who want more Ron Paul, to shame.

So here you go:

Who is your 2012 candidate of choice?




Haley Barbour




John Bolton




Herman Cain




Mitch Daniels




Newt Gingrich




Mike Huckabee




Sarah Palin




Tim Pawlenty




Mike Pence




Rick Perry




MItt Romney




Rick Santorum





  




Free polls from Pollhost.com

Go Green, Kill People!

Steven Crowder has out another great video. Consider this an open thread.

Morning Briefing for December 21, 2010

RedState Morning Briefing

For December 21, 2010

Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.

Just a brief note: the Morning Briefing will take a Christmas vacation later this week. On Thursday, Friday, and Monday we'll have some down time.

— Erick
1. It Was Ever Thus

2. Anti-Obamacare = Pro-Slavery?

3. "The System Worked": Man Boards Plane with Loaded Gun

4. Texas Speaker - Will Warren Chisum Do the Right Thing, Step Aside and Endorse Ken Paxton?

5. As $2 Trillion Debt Threatens 100 Cities in 2011, AFL-CIO Attacks NJ's Christie

6. It's time to defund the United Nations

———————————————————————-

1. It Was Ever Thus

Republicans, so long as I can recall, have faced an endless barrage of attacks from Democrats and their media allies derived from the theme that today's Republicans are mean, scary extremists not like those Republicans of the past who won elections because they were moderate and civil and whatnot. The only really good Republicans, to these critics, are dead ones (or live ones who lose elections), although past Republicans do come in for some rehabilitation as soon as they can be used as a club against their successors - we've already seen some examples of George W. Bush being cited by liberals on issues like immigration and the Ground Zero Mosque controversy.

Now, it's true, of course, that political coalitions grow and change all the time as different issues rise in importance, and that the GOP in particular has been influenced by the growth of systematic conservative thinking on a variety of fronts. But let's not fool ourselves that this is a new development. In 1854, Abe Lincoln - six years before he became the first Republican president - was already defending himself against Democrat Stephen A. Douglas' contention that Lincoln's anti-slavery position on the Kansas-Nebraska Act showed him to be out of step with those sane, moderate Whigs of the past, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster (by then, both dead).

Please click here for the rest of the post.

2. Anti-Obamacare = Pro-Slavery?

Scaling new heights of moonbattery , Huffington Post columnist Manisha Sinha posits that arguments against Obamacare and other Federal intrusions on states' rights have their roots in the pro-slavery movement, ca. 1840-60.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

3. "The System Worked": Man Boards Plane with Loaded Gun

Some moments have come to define this administration's level of incompetence and detachment from reality. For Janet Napolitano of Homeland Security, the defining moment is when she claimed "the system worked" shortly after a man came within seconds of blowing up a commercial airliner having only been narrowly thwarted by other passengers. She soon retracted her statement, however the damage had essentially been done. Coming from the administration that referred to the wars as "overseas contingency operations" and terrorism as "man caused disasters," it became clear that they cared more about process than substance. What was important to them was correctly completing arbitrary screenings as opposed to making sure that terrorism is thwarted. It's really a typical liberal mindset: The intentions far outweigh the results. Practical real-world application of experience is replaced by academic experimentation.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

4. Texas Speaker - Will Warren Chisum Do the Right Thing, Step Aside and Endorse Ken Paxton?

Anyone following the race for Texas Speaker knows that it is possible (and critical) to knock off liberal Republican Joe Straus, but that to do so requires unifying behind a single conservative alternative. Anyone, that is, except for State Rep. Warren Chisum. Or does he?

As quick background - Warren Chisum is a Democrat-turned-Republican who has been in the Texas House since 1989, representing a West Texas district (88) north of Amarillo. He's old school Texas politics - where "conservative" means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. In October, he announced a challenge to incumbent speaker Joe Straus, a liberal Republican who was given power by 65 Democrats and 11 pathetic Republicans two years ago. After announcing, Chisum gained absolutely no traction - and frankly, after garnering a few early supporters, has been absent from the fight and rumored to be traveling and away from the state.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

5. As $2 Trillion Debt Threatens 100 Cities in 2011, AFL-CIO Attacks NJ's Christie

Having spent the weekend sharing some of the news about the union-pension Ponzi scheme and the attempt to keep the truth from the American people, it is only fitting that the Guardian UK should run this story today:

"More than 100 American cities could go bust next year as the debt crisis that has taken down banks and countries threatens next to spark a municipal meltdown, a leading analyst has warned."

Please click here for the rest of the post.

6. It's time to defund the United Nations

The United States of America keeps the United Nations afloat. In 2009 we were assessed 22% of the budget of the UN, and paid out slightly under 24% of what was collected, thanks to the Tax Equalization Fund system*. So in practice we paid about a quarter of the UN budget. Without us, the UN has to do some serious belt tightening.

So if we're going to keep alive the UN as we know it, spending $598,292,101 in a direct assessment and surely more in other expenses, we'd best make sure we're getting our money's worth. The Obama deficit has gone through the roof and we simply cannot afford frivolous luxuries anymore. If the UN is not achieving its mission, it's time we stopped paying for it.

This month I believe the UN has finally crossed the threshold of uselessness, and it's time we defund it.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

Paring Down 2012

Here is round 2. I've removed both John Thune, who came in last, and David Petraeus, who came in second to last. They both got less than 500 votes out of 19,657 cast.

So, with them out, now where do those 868 votes go?

Who is your candidate for 2012?




Haley Barbour




John Bolton




Jeb Bush




Herman Cain




Mitch Daniels




Mike Huckabee




Sarah Palin




Tim Pawlenty




Mike Pence




Rick Perry




Mitt Romney





  




Free polls from Pollhost.com

Gays, Hispanics, and National Security, Oh My!

It's not lions and tigers and bears we're dealing with this morning, but gays, Hispanics, and national security.

Over the weekend, the United States Senate voted to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Suddenly there are reports in the media about gays currently serving in the military. Who knew there were any?!

But in siding with their gay constituents, Democrats threw their Hispanic constituents under the bus — they're as reliably Democrat as African-American voters, so they really don't care. The DREAM Act died.

Now the question is whether the Democrats can get enough votes for the START Treaty. According to the Constitution, they'll need two-thirds of the Senate to pass it. Republicans, who are rumored to have tried a deal to pass START and kill DADT, may very well kill the treaty now.

At least Congress will finally go home. By the way, did they ever do anything about jobs?