Erick Erickson's Blog, page 39
June 20, 2012
Morning Briefing for June 20, 2012
RedState Morning Briefing
June 20, 2012
Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.
1. From Senator Pat Toomey: America vs. the Sugar Lobby
2. It’s On: Holder tries to play Issa on Fast and Furious, will be subject of contempt vote tomorrow
3. From Rep. Michele Bachmann: The Case for Medicaid Audits to Prevent Fraud
4. WaWa and Kerry: A Tale of Two Memes
5. California State Bar Recommends Law License for Illegal Immigrant
6. Jared Polis May Have Violated House Rules Following High Park Fire Visit
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1. From Senator Pat Toomey: America vs. the Sugar Lobby
It’s not often conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans, pro-growth conservative groups and the Teamsters agree on something. In fact, it’s almost unheard of.
But when it comes to the federal government’s sugar program – one of the most egregious corporate welfare handouts in a long list of wasteful programs – these strange bedfellows have found common ground.
For years, the federal government has kept the price of sugar high by capping domestic production, imposing a de facto government price floor, and mandating that USDA buy excess sugar to sell to ethanol producers at a loss. The U.S. government also places exorbitant restrictions on sugar imports. The cumulative effect of all these special protections is an artificial increase in the price of sugar for Americans relative to other countries.
As a result, American consumers pay more for products containing sugar, and U.S. manufacturers of sugar consuming products are at a competitive disadvantage. Not surprisingly, many of these manufacturers have closed their doors or moved their factories to Canada and Mexico where sugar costs less than half the price. The Department of Commerce agrees, finding that for every one job protected by the sugar program, three others are lost in sugar using manufacturing industries.
Please click here for the rest of the post.
2. It’s On: Holder tries to play Issa on Fast and Furious, will be subject of contempt vote tomorrow
Republican members of the House Oversight and Senate Judiciary Committees have been turning up the heat on Attorney General Eric Holder over his obstructive and misleading testimony about Fast and Furious, the operation in which the ATF coerced American gun dealers into selling firearms to Mexican cartels, and then allowed them to “walk” across our southern border (all without a whisper to the Mexican government).
After being threatened with a contempt of Congress vote (scheduled for Wednesday, June 20), Holder made a last-ditch attempt to avert what he has repeatedly referred to as a “constitutional crisis,” requesting a meeting with Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) to “discuss [the Department of] Justice’s knowledge of the controversial ‘gun walking’ tactics used in Fast and Furious, including information about whistleblowers.” Issa agreed to the meeting, but informed Holder that nothing less than full disclosure – including the handover of all documents related to the program, its cover-up, and the action taken against ATF whistleblowers – would be acceptable.
Please click here for the rest of the post.
3. From Rep. Michele Bachmann: The Case for Medicaid Audits to Prevent Fraud
Minnesotans are proud people. We’re proud to boast of our 11,842 lakes and the fact that we can survive subzero temperatures for months straight. But one thing Minnesotans can’t be proud of is our state’s questionable handling of Medicaid dollars.
The House Oversight Committee recently reported, “Minnesota provides a stunning example of how states are failing to properly ensure the appropriate use of taxpayer dollars spent on Medicaid managed care.”
So how did Minnesota end up with this disappointing designation?
Please click here for the rest of the post.
4. WaWa and Kerry: A Tale of Two Memes
Yesterday saw two trial balloons floated by the Obama campaign and its surrogates in their ongoing struggle to define Mitt Romney as someone who should not be president. The first was centered around a Romney campaign stop in Pennsylvania over the weekend, the second about an announcement, of sorts, to the media over who has been selected to act as Romney in Obama’s debate rehearsals.
Let’s examine them both and what they mean in the context of this presidential campaign.
Please click here for the rest of the post.
5. California State Bar Recommends Law License for Illegal Immigrant
I am probably a good deal squishier than most conservatives on the immigration issue – I broadly favor a set of immigration reforms that would probably be (inaccurately) called “amnesty” by most people who read this blog. But this story right here really chaps my hide.
Please click here for the rest of the post.
6. Jared Polis May Have Violated House Rules Following High Park Fire Visit
Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) may have violated House ethics rules last week when he used his official .gov website to broadcast the details of his visit to the High Park Fire Command Post, which is located outside of the congressional district Polis’ currently represents. Both the House ethics and administration committees have issued clear guidance prohibiting the use of official resources for out-of-district events. The recently completed decennial redistricting process added new territory to Polis’ district, but he will only represent the new areas if he is re-elected in November.
Ethics committee guidelines, which are based on House rules that forbid the use of taxpayer dollars for what are effectively campaign activities, also prohibit members of Congress from using official resources, including staff time, to solicit donations for external organizations.
June 19, 2012
Twenty Inconvenient Years for the Left’s Media Spin on Obamacare
The year was 1990.
Then Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. of Delaware and Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina introduced S. 3266, the Crime Control Act of 1990. The law, introduced on October 27, 1990, sailed through Congress in one day. It passed the Senate by unanimous consent before 5 o’clock that evening. At 11:56 p.m. the House of Representatives approved it by 313-1. It was a bipartisan compromise and sailed through both house of Congress with Republicans and Democrats alike approving it. For perspective on this bipartisan act of supposed good governance, it took longer to for the legislation to be put in final form and presented to the President than it did to pass the Congress. Having been introduced and passed on October 27, 1990, it was not even presented to the President until November 19, 1990, and was not signed until ten days later.
Three years later, many of the same Republicans who supported the Crime Control Act of 1990 would rally behind the individual mandate as their counter-proposal to Hillary Clinton’s healthcare plan.
In 1995, five members of the United States Supreme Court declared one section of the bipartisan Crime Control Act of 1990, called the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, an unconstitutional reach for the federal government even via the commerce clause. The case, United States v. Alfonso Lopez, Jr., 514 U.S. 549 (1995) was the first time in a half century the Supreme Court restricted Congress’s powers under the commerce clause of the Constitution.
Lopez hindered Congress’s power to restrict people’s ability to carry guns near schools — not exactly something a lot of Americans were against. There was no hue and cry from the left about how the Supreme Court was going to be unpopular. But more importantly, back in 1995, it did not matter that the Republicans, like the Democrats, thought Congress had the power to regulate guns carried near schools.
The benefit of being a leftist is that history does not matter. Twenty years after the law passed with no thought as to its constitutionality, the left is setting up the media narrative anticipating Obamacare being overturned all because the left never bothered, at the time, to take seriously the idea that the individual mandate might be unconstitutional.
That the left is pushing so hard suggests they know that the Court is very likely to throw out the individual mandate.
The spin the left has chosen is summed up succinctly by Kevin Drum quoting Ezra Klein, a twenty-something who believes no one pays attention to the Constitution anymore because it is so old. From Kevin Drum referencing Ezra Klein’s New York Magazine damage control effort on behalf of Obamacare:
For all practical purposes, [Professor Orin] Kerr is agreeing that conservative judges don’t even bother pretending to be neutral anymore. They listen to Fox News, and if something becomes a conservative talking point then they’re on board. And that goes all the way up to the Supreme Court.
In other words, because Republicans were a-okay with the individual mandate before Obama decided to push it forward and because so few law professors thought it was unconstitutional, the judges and Justices of the Supreme Court must just be following partisan marching orders in what they are doing.
This is what the left’s spin is and it is what the media will adopt in their Devil’s Advocate approach of feigned objectivity in covering the Supreme Court ruling.
First, while a lot of Republicans did support the individual mandate, as did the center-right think tank the Heritage Foundation, many conservatives and a vast number of libertarians have always believed the individual mandate was unconstitutional. In fact, even internally at the Heritage Foundation way back when the mandate was first rolled out, a good number of people there thought it was unconstitutional and bad policy.
Conservative members of Congress thought it was unconstitutional and bad policy too. That politicians from the GOP thought it was okay versus ideological conservatives and libertarians says more about the establishment GOP than about ideological conservatives and Supreme Court Justices.
Second, in 1990, an overwhelming number of Republicans and Democrats both agreed the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1990 was constitutional. The Supreme Court said otherwise. Surely Chief Justice Rehnquist along with Justices O’Connor, Kennedy, Scalia, and Thomas got the memo from the RNC.
Many liberals are now coming to terms with their hubris and it is an ugly sight to behold. They were convinced the Constitution did not matter. They were convinced the individual mandate was constitutional because their left-wing law professors who also thought the Constitution didn’t much matter told them so. They had been surrounded by a lot of Republicans who in 1990 thought Congress could regulate guns around schools who went on, three years later, to think Congress could force people to buy health insurance. Neither the Republicans then nor the left now really thought the Constitution had much meaning beyond regulating the division of otherwise plenary power between branches of a federal government.
The reality is far different.
The Republicans of 1990 who sided with the Democrats on guns were the same Republicans who in 1993 supported an individual mandate as a way to undermine Hillary Clinton. They are not the free-market entrepreneurs like a future Florida Governor named Rick Scott who, with his own money, helped build the arguments to undermine Obamacare and Hillarycare before it. For the most part, they are not the same Republicans who, two decades later, came in to Congress wanting to restore the federalist balance of the Constitution.
More importantly, they are not the Supreme Court who, after the Heritage Foundation in 1989 had first suggested the individual mandate and after the Republicans in 1993 proposed it, ruled in 1995 that there were real limits on the commerce clause. Most importantly, they were not the voters who threw the Democrats out of Congress in 1994 and again in 2010 for their efforts to shake up the constitutional order under the guise of healthcare reform.
All the left’s handwringing over the Republicans’ support of the individual mandate fails to pay attention to Lopez, which came out after the GOP had largely abandoned the individual mandate. The left also fails to pay attention that the GOP’s base expended a great deal of energy driving from the party those who still supported the individual mandate and the GOP base has been far more successful at purging its establishment than the left has been. See e.g. Senator Ned Lamont . . . errrr . . . Senator Joseph Lieberman and former Senator Bob Bennett.
The left and its mouthpieces in the media will claim the Supreme Court is a partisan creature of the GOP. The reality is that the left is just really bad at remembering history.
Morning Briefing for June 19, 2012
RedState Morning Briefing
June 19, 2012
Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.
1. Twenty Inconvenient Years for the Left’s Media Spin on Obamacare
2. Energy Policy *IS* Grassroots Politics
3. What to take away from the debunking of MSNBC’s fake Romney WaWa ‘scandal.’
———————————————————————-
1. Twenty Inconvenient Years for the Left’s Media Spin on Obamacare
The year was 1990.
Then Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. of Delaware and Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina introduced S. 3266, the Crime Control Act of 1990. The law, introduced on October 27, 1990, sailed through Congress in one day. It passed the Senate by unanimous consent before 5 o’clock that evening. At 11:56 p.m. the House of Representatives approved it by 313-1. It was a bipartisan compromise and sailed through both house of Congress with Republicans and Democrats alike approving it. For perspective on this bipartisan act of supposed good governance, it took longer to for the legislation to be put in final form and presented to the President than it did to pass the Congress. Having been introduced and passed on October 27, 1990, it was not even presented to the President until November 19, 1990, and was not signed until ten days later.
Three years later, many of the same Republicans who supported the Crime Control Act of 1990 would rally behind the individual mandate as their counter-proposal to Hillary Clinton’s healthcare plan.
In 1995, five members of the United States Supreme Court declared one section of the bipartisan Crime Control Act of 1990, called the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990, an unconstitutional reach for the federal government even via the commerce clause. The case, United States v. Alfonso Lopez, Jr., 514 U.S. 549 (1995) was the first time in a half century the Supreme Court restricted Congress’s powers under the commerce clause of the Constitution.
Lopez hindered Congress’s power to restrict people’s ability to carry guns near schools — not exactly something a lot of Americans were against. There was no hue and cry from the left about how the Supreme Court was going to be unpopular. But more importantly, back in 1995, it did not matter that the Republicans, like the Democrats, thought Congress had the power to regulate guns carried near schools.
The benefit of being a leftist is that history does not matter. Twenty years after the law passed with no thought as to its constitutionality, the left is setting up the media narrative anticipating Obamacare being overturned all because the left never bothered, at the time, to take seriously the idea that the individual mandate might be unconstitutional.
Please click here for the rest of the post.
2. Energy Policy *IS* Grassroots Politics
Compare and contrast these maps. First, the “undervote” by county in the recent Pennsylvania Democratic Presidential primary. The numbers in each county represent the proportion of voters in a Democratic primary who selected “no candidate” rather than vote for the incumbent, Barack Obama.
Now, the distribution map of the Marcellus Shale.
Please click here for the rest of the post.
3. What to take away from the debunking of MSNBC’s fake Romney WaWa ‘scandal.’
Background: Mitt Romney made a campaign speech today that used the WaWa convenience store franchise’s touch screen sandwich menu feature to make the point of how more cool and efficient the private sector is, when compared to the government. MSNBC doctored the clip to make it look like Romney was merely astounded that we have touch screen sandwich menus now*. Lots of people called MSNBC out on it. Hijinks are now going to ensue.
June 18, 2012
Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, Roger Clemens, and Obamacare #EERS
Tonight on the Erick Erickson Show, I’ll get into my post from this morning about Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. Also, the Department of Justice now has a long string of high profile cases that have gone down in flames. Roger Clemens is just the latest.
We’ll get into it all.
You can listen live tonight on the WSB live stream and call in at 1-800-WSB-TALK. The show runs from 6pm to 8pm ET.
Consider this an open thread.
UPDATE: By the way, a lot of people are requesting this. I read it on the radio: Read this now.
BREAKING: Brett McGurk Withdraws Nomination
Reports are coming across the wire and lots of reporters on twitter saying Brett McGurk, the man Barack Obama chose to be Ambassador to Iraq, has withdrawn his nomination even though he cleared the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
McGurk has been under fire lately for using his State Department email address to carry on an affair with a Wall Street Journal employee now in Iraq. There have also been persistent rumors about other conduct relating to McGurk in Iraq.
Lots of credit should go to the Washington Free Beacon for being fearless in its coverage of Brett McGurk.
We’ve Reached the Penultimate Jimmy Carter Moment of the Obama Presidency
Chris Cillizza made me laugh out loud last evening when I read his column, which opens with a question: “Is it possible for a president — any president — to succeed in the modern world of politics?”
There is nothing new under the sun, including this question.
On January 19, 2010, I wrote about the ungovernability of the American Republic. At that time, Barack Obama lamented the filibuster was making the nation ungovernable. Liberal commentators were up in arms over how ungovernable the nation was.
Liberal blogger Andrew Sullivan noted at the time, “[I]f America cannot grapple with its deep and real problems after electing a new president with two majorities, then America’s problems are too great for Americans to tackle.”
In this morning’s ever indefatigable Transom, Ben Domenech points out this Jonah Goldberg prediction from February 1, 2010, that is even more precise: “So here’s my additional prediction: Liberals will blame the new media climate.”
The fact of the matter is, the last time liberals and traditional media sources were asking the question, they were asking it while Jimmy Carter was President. It was the penultimate moment of the Carter Presidency when, breaking out of the echo chamber, liberals in the media began to openly ponder the ungovernability of the American Republic and whether the Presidency was too big for one man.
Turns out the Republic was just fine. It wasn’t that the Presidency was too big for one man. It was that the particular occupant of the office was too small for the job. When Reagan became President, the question was rendered moot.
As my friend Josh Trevino has pointed out, this question has been raised throughout the history of our Republic in one form or another. That it is being raised again shows a lack of appreciation for our history, a misunderstanding of our constitutional order, and a constrained sense of exactly what governing success looks like.
The dirty little secret of our American Republic is that our ungovernability at the national level is a feature, not a bug. The founders intended it to be extremely difficult to pass legislation having just fought, bled, and seen friends die for a liberty they thought they already had only to see their government, of both a king and a Parliament, barter away their freedoms.
The difficulty in “good” governance is one of the last in a series of resistors designed to protect the citizens from the “good” government intentions of those they sent to Washington. It is a powerful reminder, should we pay close attention to this difficulty and resistance, that the federal government is supposed to be a government of limited powers. The difficulty and resistance reduce and largely go away when the President, for example, deals with foreign affairs. In that area, unlike the implementation of a domestic agenda, the President has much more constitutional power because his operations are not directed at the American citizens, but at other sovereign powers. At such time as his foreign policy powers might come to restrict the rights of citizens via treaty, again we see the resistors in operation with a two-thirds vote in the Senate required to approve at treaty.
In a conversation between Josh Trevino and Chris Cillizza on twitter last night, Cillizza , “Did the last century have the fracturing of media and social networking sites we have now?” As a matter of fact, newspapers in the eighteenth and nineteenth century were even more openly partisan than they are now. The “social networking sites” of the times were patronage positions, secret societies, and pamphleteers.
There really is nothing new under the sun, including looking at our time from the conventional wisdom of our time, ignoring ages past. Compared to our founding and the subsequent decades of expansion when, by the way, the President had fewer executive powers than he does now, the Civil War, the two world wars, and the cold war, we live in relatively inconsequential times. That anyone could look at our 236th year of existence and ask if the President can succeed in the “modern world of politics” raises a better question — have we become so shallow and vain as to think our generation and our time is more consequential than that which came before us?
It also begs one question more: if, in the “modern world of politics” the President of the United States cannot succeed because of the system our founders put in place to restrain the majority and prevent tyranny — a real concept to those who have lived or do live under it — what then shall we come to, a tyrant?
[UPDATE:] In this morning’s Transom, which you should be subscribed to, Ben Domenech adds some thoughts of his own:
What Cilizza is really posing is a conventionally posed question about the nature of power and how you define success. President Obama has met with success in an enormous number of areas if you define it as “getting the thing he wants” – in foreign policy he’s gotten his way on every major question; in domestic policy, he had two full years of getting virtually everything he wanted (more than many presidents do); and beyond stimulus and bailouts, he succeeded where Bill Clinton failed in passing the most sweeping reform of the health care system since LBJ created Medicare and Medicaid.
The problem: all that success has turned out to be pretty unpopular. Virtually every poll shows a majority of people in his own party think the crux of his health care law is unconstitutional. The real question Cilizza’s posing isn’t whether it’s possible for a president to succeed in the modern world of politics, it’s whether he can succeed having to deal with that pesky little thing: the American people. This is the classic Wilsonian approach to the executive, a belief that the president can only succeed if he operates removed from the filthy ignoramuses in the populace. It’s one of the reasons Obama lectures us so much more now that he’s had to put up with us from the White House for three and a half years: “Can’t you see all this great stuff I’ve done? It’s for your own good!”
One of the most irritating aspects of the media elite and the establishment in both parties is fueled by this view. These tend to be the same folks who think third parties can be formed around the principles of Simpson-Bowles, the reforms of Norm Ornstein, and the nanny statism of Michael Bloomberg. It always comes down to the idea that politics would be a lot better off if not for elections, if politicians operated independent of those pesky voters with their fickle whims and ideologies. This strong man theory of governance is a long-running historical tradition – just not an American one. Thus: it’s time once again to dissolve the people and elect another.
The White House Is Not Enough
Consider this Wall Street Journal editorial your must read of the day. It highlights why adding conservatives to the United States Senate is so important.
This past week, Republican in the Senate, including Mitch McConnell’s leadership picks, sat idly by saying nothing while the Senate Democrats pushed forward the nomination of Andrew Hurwitz, who helped formulate the reasoning behind Roe v. Wade while a law clerk. Hurwitz is quite fond of that bit of his legacy.
Andrew Hurwitz’s nomination could have been blocked from consideration had just one more Republican voted no.
John McCain, Jon Kyl, and Lamar Alexander all voted for cloture. Most troubling, Harry Reid slid Hurwitz’s nomination to the floor with the unexpected request of a voice vote and the Republicans present did not object. It’s a technical issue, but I will put it to you this way: both Senators and outside groups who were trying to stop Hurwitz understand that Hurwitz’s confirmation was part of a deal struck by Republican and Democrat leaders in the Senate. The GOP Senators were too scared of the “war on women” angle to pick a fight over Hurwitz. I’m sure we’ll see the GOP’s payoff in the farm bill.
Only after Hurwitz had secured the confirmation hurtle did Mitch McConnell boldly and bravely declare the GOP would shut down further judicial confirmations for the year. Leadership staff would have you believe the Hurwitz mess was just a run of the mill loss and there was no back room whispering involved and timing of the shutdown of confirmations occurring after Hurwitz was just coincidental.
Likewise, Marco Rubio helped round up votes to get Mari Carmen Aponte confirmed as ambassador to El Salvador. Ms. Aponte dated a Cuban spy for 20 years, was a director of La Raza, and she has incensed Catholics in El Salvador with her political activism in support of gay rights.
Now sixteen Senate Republican have managed to keep sugar prices high to help corporate interests, though in a time of economic recession doing so hurts American consumers and keeps prices artificially high — not to mention keeps us from having coca-cola made with real sugar unless we get the kosher or Mexican varieties.
This is why we must continue supporting Ted Cruz. Between David Dewhurst and Ted Cruz, there is no doubt Cruz will side with Jim DeMint and Dewhurst with Mitch McConnell. It’s not enough to get a Republican in the White House if we don’t have conservatives in the Senate to both help and guide a conservative agenda for America.
Morning Briefing for June 18, 2012
RedState Morning Briefing
June 18, 2012
Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.
1. We’ve Reached the Penultimate Jimmy Carter Moment of the Obama Presidency
2. The White House Is Not Enough
3. Congratulations to President Obama on his 100th round of golf
4. Obama Seeks to Nullify our Immigration Laws
5. James Lovelock, Father of Gaia Theory, Endorses Natural Gas Fracking
———————————————————————-
1. We’ve Reached the Penultimate Jimmy Carter Moment of the Obama Presidency
Chris Cillizza made me laugh out loud last evening when I read his column, which opens with a question: “Is it possible for a president — any president — to succeed in the modern world of politics?”
There is nothing new under the sun, including this question.
On January 19, 2010, I wrote about the ungovernability of the American Republic. At that time, Barack Obama lamented the filibuster was making the nation ungovernable. Liberal commentators were up in arms over how ungovernable the nation was.
Liberal blogger Andrew Sullivan noted at the time, “[I]f America cannot grapple with its deep and real problems after electing a new president with two majorities, then America’s problems are too great for Americans to tackle.”
The fact of the matter is, the last time liberals and traditional media sources were asking the question, they were asking it while Jimmy Carter was President. It was the penultimate moment of the Carter Presidency when, breaking out of the echo chamber, liberals in the media began to openly ponder the ungovernability of the American Republic and whether the Presidency was too big for one man.
Turns out the Republic was just fine. It wasn’t that the Presidency was too big for one man. It was that the particular occupant of the office was too small for the job. When Reagan became President, the question was rendered moot.
Please click here for the rest of the post.
2. The White House Is Not Enough
Consider this Wall Street Journal editorial your must read of the day. It highlights why adding conservatives to the United States Senate is so important.
This past week, Republican in the Senate, including Mitch McConnell’s leadership picks, sat idly by saying nothing while the Senate Democrats pushed forward the nomination of Andrew Hurwitz, who helped formulate the reasoning behind Roe v. Wade while a law clerk. Hurwitz is quite fond of that bit of his legacy.
Andrew Hurwitz’s nomination could have been blocked from consideration had just one more Republican voted no.
Please click here for the rest of the post.
3. Congratulations to President Obama on his 100th round of golf
Yesterday, President Obama completed his 98th (documented) round of golf.
Obama is working hard, at least at playing golf. In less than three-and-a-half years he has played 100 rounds of golf.
Just nine months into the Obama presidency the New York Post reported that Obama surpassed former President George W. Bush on the number of days spent on the golf course when Obama played a round of golf for the 24th time in his presidency — a milestone it took Bush almost three years to reach. Bush gave up golf in 2003 saying “I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.” That’s a position Obama obviously rejects.
Please click here for the rest of the post.
4. Obama Seeks to Nullify our Immigration Laws
King Barack Hussein Kardashian Obama thinks that he gets to invent laws where they don’t exists and disregard the ones that are already on the books.
In yet another demonstration of contempt for the rule of law and the separation of powers, the Obama administration has announced that it will no longer enforce our immigration laws (not that he’s been enforcing them until now). The Washington Times broke the story this morning about a secret memo from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that establishes new policies advising agents to release some illegals caught crossing the border. The new policy will encourage agents to suspend deportation proceedings and grant amnesty to those who ostensibly fit the criteria of the Dream Act – a bill that was defeated with overwhelming bipartisan support of Congress. Hence, the administration is publicly declaring that federal agents will ensure our laws are not executed faithfully.
Please click here for the rest of the post.
5. James Lovelock, Father of Gaia Theory, Endorses Natural Gas Fracking
James Lovelock, now 92 years of age, is the father of Gaia theory, the idea that Mother Earth is a sort of sentient, self-regulating organism. So it was noteworthy a few weeks back when he walked back some of his predictions of our planet’s impending doom from Global Warming.
In an interview with the Guardian, Lovelock embraces fracking for natural gas, scorns renewables and castigates the Germans for shutting down their nukes in favor of lignite, a low-grade coal, for electricity generation.
June 15, 2012
Morning Briefing for June 15, 2012
RedState Morning Briefing
June 15, 2012
Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.
1. From Gov. Bobby Jindal: Liberal and Incompetent
2. Obama Skips Out On Bill at Lunch
3. Senate Confirms Radical Aponte as Ambassador to El Salvador
4. Unions Intend to Strong-Arm American Airlines
5. Sugarcoating the Cost of Special Interest Subsidies with Food Stamps
———————————————————————-
1. From Gov. Bobby Jindal: Liberal and Incompetent
A few weeks back I found myself at the scene of the crime… campaigning in Wisconsin with Governor Walker. One thing was abundantly clear, and if you spent any time helping out Governor Walker in his campaign, you can attest to this — The radical left has taken over the Democrat Party.
Last Tuesday in Wisconsin, the silent majority was very loud. Call it the Cheesehead Rebellion. I suppose you could say that the people have spoken, but the truth is they spoke a year and half ago and this entire recall election was nothing more than a case of sour grapes from the radical left that has taken over the once proud Democrat Party. Let’s remember what happened here. The hard left launched this recall because Scott Walker had the audacity to act in the best interests of the people of Wisconsin.
Please click here for the rest of the post.
2. Obama Skips Out On Bill at Lunch
Sometimes the metaphors create themselves.
Please click here for the rest of the post.
3. Senate Confirms Radical Aponte as Ambassador to El Salvador
It’s another day in the Senate, and another radical Obama nominee is confirmed.
Last August, flustered by Jim DeMint’s Senate hold, Obama used a recess appointment to name Maria del Carmen Aponte ambassador to El Salvador. She was originally selected as ambassador to the Domincan Republic during the Clinton administration, but she withdrew her name after refusing to take a polygraph test concerning her relationship with Cuban spy, Roberto Tamayo. Nonetheless, radical rejects of the Clinton administration are the very people whom Obama loves to recycle.
Please click here for the rest of the post.
4. Unions Intend to Strong-Arm American Airlines
With the events of Wisconsin still fresh in our minds, and the cost of public sector unions at the center of state budget debates, it’s easy to overlook how devastating big labor can be on the American worker as well as the companies that employ them.
For an example, look no further than American Airlines (AA). AA remained a profitable company in an industry full of bankruptcies for decades, finally succumbing to the increasingly unsustainable union costs and being forced into bankruptcy in 2011. The situation is eerily similar to the auto industry woes as the bill came in on cushy pensions & mandatory wage increases in 2008.
Please click here for the rest of the post.
5. Sugarcoating the Cost of Special Interest Subsidies with Food Stamps
Here’s a novel idea: let’s stop subsidizing Big Sugar. Maybe if the government wouldn’t intervene in the agriculture sector, inducing sharp increases in the price of commodities, many of the 46 million people on food stamps would be able to afford food.
Then again, why would liberal politicians abrogate their source of political power? They stand to benefit from subsidizing rich sugar farmers and keeping 15% of the country dependent upon the government for food. The calculus of socialism dictates that a permanent dependency constituency + special interest money = perennial power.
June 14, 2012
FreedomFest 2012
FreedomFest bills itself as the world’s largest gathering of free minds. It will be happening July 11th to the 14th in Las Vegas, NV. I’ll be speaking that Saturday.
Not sure what FreedomFest really is? Check this out. If you want to attend or are curious, you can check out the agenda right here.
As a RedState reader, if you sign up in June (you’ve got two weeks) — you will get an American eagle silver dollar, FreedomFest’s symbol of sound money and liberty.
You can go here to register.
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