It's tea time! TED CRUZ WINS! TED CRUZ WINS!! And handily over Dewhurst: 57% - 43%.
First Politico made the call, then Sen. Jim DeMint released the following statement via Facebook:
Congratulations to Ted Cruz! Ted’s victory is a loud statement to the Washington establishment that Americans are ready to take back their country. Under the old system, the party establishment picked the status-quo candidates who toed the party line. But, the people have risen up to elect principled leaders like Ted Cruz who will take on big spenders in both parties and fight to save America from fiscal collapse. Voters trust Ted Cruz to reform Washington instead of becoming part of it. In 2010, America sent Rand Paul, Mike Lee, Ron Johnson, Marco Rubio, and Pat Toomey to the Senate. In 2012, we have the chance to elect more courageous leaders like Ted Cruz, Richard Mourdock, Josh Mandel, Mark Neumann, and Jeff Flake. Tonight’s victory will have Washington shaking in its boots but give freedom-loving Americans everywhere.
Former state solicitor general Ted Cruz, a tea party-aligned conservative once regarded as a long-shot candidate, has won the Republican runoff in Texas, where he will be the GOP nominee for the U.S. Senate in the November election. The Associated Press has called the race for Cruz over Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. Cruz will be a heavy favorite over Democratic nominee Paul Sadler, who also won a runoff on Tuesday.
Congratulations to Ted Cruz, Texas' next U.S. Senator! And congratulations TEXAS! Lone Star conservatives have changed the landscape for the rest of the nation with this victory. Oh...and the tea party is alive and well, folks.
ADDENDUM: Check out Ted's amazing victory speech here!
Here's another report from Wednesday morning...
Fox News: Ted Cruz is fond of saying that when he began his run for U.S. Senate, he was at 2 percent in the polls against Texas Republican juggernaut David Dewhurst, the state's lieutenant governor for nearly a decade.
Actually, the 41-year-old former state solicitor general seemed an even longer shot than that.
Gov. Rick Perry and much of the rest of the Republican establishment lined up to endorse Dewhurst for their party's nomination to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, and the party's mainstream doesn't lose much in Texas. After all, the state hasn't elected a Democrat to statewide office in nearly 20 years.
But Cruz pulled off what had seemed an unthinkable upset Tuesday, and it wasn't even close. He trounced Dewhurst by about 13 percentage points, shaking one of America's reddest states to its political core.
His victory was all the more stunning considering Cruz lost to the lieutenant governor 44 percent to 34 percent during the state's May 29 primary. But simply making it to a second round of voting proved a major momentum-builder for Cruz, who vowed to prevail since his supporters were dedicated enough to turn out during the Texas summer doldrums.
Cruz got there by spending months sitting in on Republican women's meetings at Denny's, chatting up pastors at Bible studies and addressing tea party gatherings across Texas. Eventually, he became enough of a grass-roots sensation to attract the support of national conservative groups such as the anti-tax Club for Growth, which branded Dewhurst as too moderate and spent millions to help defeat him.
Levin also saluted the people of Texas at the beginning of Wednesday's program "for voting in Ted Cruz in the Republican primary as conservatives once again have proven that they will not succumb to the Establishment."
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there will be a shortage of sand."
"Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."
"Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government."
"Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program."
~ Milton Friedman
RUSH: We have the 100th birthday today of Milton Friedman. Milton Friedman -- some of you in this audience may not know -- Milton Friedman, University of Chicago, a brilliant economist. He and his wife were a dynamo. They were a dynamic team. In economics, free market capitalism, Milton Friedman's a rock star. Milton Friedman should be the Bible for young people, or anybody, trying to understand capitalism and free markets.
...if [Milton Friedman] wasn't in a class all by himself, it certainly didn't take long to call the roll.
He would be a hundred years old today. I have a sound bite I want to play for you. Actually, two sound bites. One sound bite is two minutes of Milton Friedman schooling Phil Donahue and his audience in greed and capitalism and virtue. Before that, though, I want to play for you a sound bite of "Barack Hussein Obama! Mmm! Mmm! Mmm!" reading the audio version of his book, The Audacity of Hope. This is Obama talking about a sermon by Reverend Wright that moved him.
He was quoting Reverend Wright, and he said that's for me, man, I love that. White folks' greed runs a world in need. So let's go to 1979, ancient times for many of you. We may as well be going back to the Roman Coliseum for this. Nineteen seventy nine, I was 28. Ancient times for many of you. Phil Donahue interviewing Milton Friedman, and they had this exchange. And Donahue starts off wanting to know about greed and capitalism. Here it is. And listen to this.
Milton Friedman back in 1979 schooling Phil Donahue, and everybody else who heard that on the notions of virtue and greed and just basically upsetting Phil's applecart. Phil wasn't smart enough to know it was happening. He's still running around lamenting the accident of birth. If he'd been 30 miles south he would have grown up in poverty. Anyway, we wanted to play that for you and recognize Milton Friedman, 100 years old today, and now, in a testament to Milton Friedman of free market economics, here is our first obscene profit time-out of the day.
Only Rush can pull off that masterful stroke of a segway to a commercial! But as for Friedman, I could literally listen to the man all day, with all of his vast knowledge and wit, and it never gets old. Quite to the contrary, we could absolutely use more of his economic philosophy these days.
Josh Barro made an interesting observation yesterday towards this idea of a 'black dialect' and a misunderstanding when Obama gave his 'you didn't built that' speech...
Bloomberg: Jonathan Chait says the president’s "you didn't build that" speech revived racial resentments about redistributive fiscal policy, partly because the president was speaking in a “black dialect.”
Maybe this was a problem with the speech, but the key problem was much simpler: The president was needlessly insulting. He wasn’t just calling on successful people to pay more in tax but was being dismissive of their accomplishments.
Ding, ding, ding...we have a winner! Redistribution involving black, white or polka-dotted people is wrong, period. Then to insult success on top of that...well, the fact that we're still talking about it speaks to its resonance.
Another decisive difference between the two presidential contenders arose over the weekend and into Monday. The topic: Jerusalem.
First came Romney's visit to Israel.
Freedom's Lighthouse: During his outstanding speech in Jerusalem [Sunday], Gov. Mitt Romney said what President Barack Obama’s Press Secretary Jay Carney was unwilling to say the other day – that Jerusalem is the Capital of Israel.
Of course, the radical Islamists (but I repeat myself) flipped out...just listen to this one spokeshole from Hamas (via Jerusalem Post):
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum accused Romney of insulting the feelings of Palestinians and Muslims by declaring that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel during his visit. “These are racist and extremist statements that deny the rights of the Palestinian people,” Barhoum said. “His statements distort and forge history and mislead public opinion.”
HA! 'Distort...forge history...mislead'? Someone get this man a mirror! Then he continued with a standard, “Jerusalem is the capital of the Palestinians and Palestine and we will never give it up.” All kinds of historical wrongs there.
But according to yet another Obama administration official, in addition to the borders being up for grabs, apparently the capital city is too! Unbelievable...they, like the Islamists, still continue to deny what all of us learned in our earliest world history and world geography classes. All for politics...
CNSNews: In what marks a decisive difference in the presidential campaign, one day after Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney called Jerusalem the capital of Israel, the White House asserted that Romney’s position was different from that of the Obama administration.
“Our view is that that is a different position than this administration holds. It’s the view of this administration that the capital should be determined in final status negotiations between parties,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Monday.
And when anyone from the Obama administration says 'parties', what they're really talking about are the Israeli authorities and...a bunch of Islamic terrorist masquerading as a political party.
So, there ya go...but I could have sworn there was a president who looks and sounds like Barack Obama that stated definitively back in '08 that Jerusalem was the capital of Israel (as well as some liberal talking heads who seemed fine with it)...
Although, to be fair, by the end of the next month, he did seem to begin giving a bit more of a two-faced response...yet still contending that Jerusalem was the capital city.
As theBlaze points out, "It’s quite a shift to go from “Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided” to “the capital should be determined in final status negotiations between parties.” One must wonder what changed – that is, aside from the President’s need to motivate his base."
I believe what we're seeing in this decisive difference is the Obama administration's re-revisited attempts to appease the muslims, the same thing they've done since Barack's reign began in '09. But while Obama refuses to go to Israel, despite trips to Egypt and elsewhere abroad, treating Netanyahu like a distant associate instead of an intimate ally, and now failing to acknowledge that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, Mitt Romney does the exact opposite: travels to Israel, delivers a moving speech (which received a standing ovation, btw), treats Bibi & Israel like the close ally they've always been, and even has the cojones to call Jerusalem the capital of Israel. How controversial...NOT!
Note: Mitt didn't demand that Israel return to its pre-1967 borders either.
TheDailyCaller: At the urging of Valerie Jarrett, President Barack Obama canceled the operation to kill Osama bin Laden on three separate occasions before finally approving the May 2, 2011 Navy SEAL mission, according to an explosive new book scheduled for release August 21. The Daily Caller has seen a portion of the chapter in which the stunning revelation appears.
In ”Leading From Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him,“ Richard Miniter writes that Obama canceled the “kill” mission in January 2011, again in February, and a third time in March. Obama’s close adviser Valerie Jarrett persuaded him to hold off each time, according to the book.
Miniter, a two-time New York Times best-selling author, cites an unnamed source with Joint Special Operations Command who had direct knowledge of the operation and its planning.
Obama administration officials also said after the raid that the president had delayed giving the order to kill the arch-terrorist the day before the operation was carried out, in what turned out to be his fourth moment of indecision.
Oh well...it's the perception that they were going for all along anyway, particularly with their media mouthpieces. I tend to look at these issues the way Zo put it...as well as how many SEALs see it.
Meanwhile...the Obama administration is hard at work attacking another small business...
CBSNews: The company behind Buckyballs is claiming that the federal government unfairly targeted it's business when the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a complaint to stop sales of the magnetic product.
"Obviously the bureaucrats see danger everywhere, and those responsible people - like our company who have vigorously promoted safety and appropriate use of our products - gets put out of business by an unfair and arbitrary process," Craig Zucker, Founder and CEO of Maxfield and Oberton, which manufactures Buckyballs and Buckycubes, said in a statement. "I don't understand how and why they did this without following their own rules before allowing us to make our case. It almost seems like they simply wanted to put our products and industry out of business."
The CPSC, a federal agency, filed a complaint yesterday against the magnetic adult desk products because of their potential health hazards for children. The consumer watchdog group asked for retailers to stop selling the high-powered rare earth magnets because of the risks posed to individuals that swallow the balls. Already, Amazon, Brookstone and Urban Outfitters have complied.
Currently marketed to adults, the CPSC reported that more than 2 million Buckyballs have been sold in the U.S., as well as 200,000 Buckycubes. Each container has anywhere from between 10 to 216 small magnets.
And get this...here's the excuse as to why they had to be banned...
Problems arose when children began swallowing the tiny balls and using them to mimic cheek or tongue piercings, leading to accidental swallowing.
I think that's more of a commentary on our cultural ailments and intelligence than an issue concerning safety! And did you catch the part about being 'adult desk products'? That's right, they're only 'marketed to adults'. Call me crazy, but I wouldn't put it past this regime to make the call against this small business because of the 'rare earth' quality of their magnets. Whatever the case, this action by the CPSC, which hasn't been taken in eleven years, has forced the company to launch a campaign (video seen above) in an effort to stay in business.
And though this may feel like another Gibson attack, this chapter of American politics is rounding out to be something bigger. In other words, these are not simply attacks on capitalism and small business; this is a much larger war being waged on the entirety of American civil society.
ADDENDUM: Michelle Malkin discussed this issue with Fox & Friends, via theRightScoop. In addition to Malkin's penny example, what about marbles? Or Legos? What's next?
Most of us had hoped the Romney camp would continue to pound away at this point, with ad after ad...well, here's another ad...
...and another...
Again, what an effective juxtaposition that's being revealed here by focusing on the success of the private entrepreneurial spirit, while continuing to chip away at Obama's statist ideology. Real people, real businesses, real jobs...keep 'em coming!
O Jerusalem, O Israel...this administration has nothing but contempt for you. Today, the Emergency Committee for Israel revealed a new ad, released after yet another official denail diverting from years past rhetoric, that sheds so much light on the Obama administration’s hypocrisy regarding their refusal to simply state the fact of the matter that Jerusalem IS the capital of Israel.
Not only should the Jewish community find insult and cause for concern in these denials, so should the people of this nation, for America has always been Israel's staunchest ally...that is, until this president.
Here's a great moment on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives...
Rush: Congressman Mike Kelly, Pennsylvania Republican, got a standing ovation while he spoke in the House. That doesn't happen. No applause is allowed by members of Congress. A president can go in there and, of course, they raise the roof. But the protocol does not permit applause, a standing ovation, or this kind of stuff during session. He got a standing ovation for what he said. There's a visual here that I want you to have while you listen. He holds up a stack of papers. It's 11000 pages of lending requirements, and he's on the warpath here about how regulation is killing jobs in his district.
"And here's [Obama's] counter philosophy...making that which is imperfect, perfect, if only we put in place what Obama imagines. There it is, ladies and gentlemen, utopian statism, Ameritopia style."
Now, go buy some Chick-fil-A before the program begins! And you can eat & listen while driving to your nearest poll to early vote for Ted Cruz, Texans!
I want to bring in two separate stories in an effort to tie the two together to show you the strategy of the Left, especially those within this administration, in their efforts to reelect, or rather save, this failure of a president.
Voter fraud spreads from VA on
First, Mark Levin brought more light to a huge voter fraud story on Thursday's program; and although the trail starts in Virginia, the fraud can be traced throughout nearly half the states in America with top Democrat funders behind it! The name to remember here: the Voter Participation Center.
WaPo: A group that tries to get “historically underrepresented groups” to the polls
has targeted some particularly unlikely voters: dogs and dead Virginians.
The Voter Participation Center, a Washington-based nonprofit, also sent voter
registration forms to scores of noncitizens, children and other Virginians
ineligible to vote, according to the Virginia State Board of Elections, which
has received more than 100 complaints.
The mailings have revived talk of voter fraud in Virginia, a crucial swing state where President Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney are deadlocked in a recent poll. And it has prompted the Romney campaign to call for a criminal investigation.
The center said it used a commercial mailing list to target unregistered voters,
and that it never meant to send forms to anyone ineligible to vote. It said the
errant mailings, first reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, represent just a
fraction of the nearly 200,000 it sent out across Virginia.
Now, here's a link elaborating on the Romney campaign's call for an investigation, but sticking to the story, that entire last paragraph is utter BS! Pajamas Media picks up from there asking, "Why is the Voter Participation Center spoofing the Virginia State Board of Elections’ return address?"
PJMedia: News broke that the Romney campaign is requesting a state-level investigation of a voter registration group in Virginia. That group, the Voter Participation Center, has been sending out voter registration forms to people all over the commonwealth, hundreds of thousands of forms per month. The Washington Post and the Richmond Times-Dispatch have published stories on the Voter Participation Center and the allegations that the Romney campaign has levied against it. But both stories barely hint at what the VPC may be doing.
The center’s registration forms, some of which have been addressed to the dead, children, even pets and felons ineligible to vote in Virginia, state that recipients are eligible to vote. They come with some personal information already filled in, and instruct recipients to send the forms in to the Virginia State Board of Elections via Business Reply Mail to an address pre-printed on the form. But where do the returned forms really go? The address for the State Board of Elections is correct up to the zip code. But the zip code on the form will send it somewhere other than the actual State Board of Elections.
The bogus zip code is not a mistake or misprint. Google mapping 23286-0508 leads to a Richmond, VA park, and a query to the post office nearby at 1801 Brook Rd. in Richmond confirmed that the return address resides within that post office. The Voter Participation Center appears to be spoofing the Virginia State Board of Elections. The Voter Participation Center appears to be receiving forms that respondents believe are going to the Virginia State Board of Elections, but are not. Why? How many states is the VPC operating in?
Well, PJMedia later informs us that the VPC is operating in nearly half of the states in America: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin! So this fraud is definitely not limited to Virginia only. Thus far, numerous cases have shown up in Virginia, Florida, Colorado and Wisconsin, all of which "are expected to be in play in the presidential election in November, and most polling shows a tightening race in all of them. A small number of votes here and there could make a very significant difference."
And whose behind the Voter Participation Center? I think you'll recognize the names...
The Voter Participation Center is not a non-partisan entity. It is run by longtime Democratic Party operative Page S. Gardner and receives funding from the Tides Center, which is funded by Democratic Party heavyweights including Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of Sen. John Kerry (D-MA). The VPC’s Democratic connections do not stop there. John Podesta, former President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff and current chair and counselor to the Democratic advocacy group Center for American Progress, is on the Voter Participation Center’s board. The CAP is among the many groups on the political left that receive significant funding from George Soros, the billionaire who was convicted of insider trading by a French court in 2002.
Many of the usual suspects bound up together with no hint of our U.S. Attorney General batting an eye at the multiple levels of corruption taking place here (i.e., postal tampering, identity theft, voter fraud, etc.). On the contrary, Holder will give a pass to it all, pulling out the race card with his opposition to Voter ID laws, wrapping any legitimate complaint or investigation up in legal jargon, all for the sake of his Dear Leader.
So, let's put this together with the next story...
The latest scoop of amnesty chaos
A report came out this morning that the Border Patrol unions are claiming that illegal aliens are exploiting the 'dreamer' policy put in place not through congressional approval mind you (because they've thus far rejected it), but administered through Obama's lawless executive fiat (i.e., skirting Congress and the rule of law).
FOXNews: Union heads representing thousands of America's immigration agents slammed the Obama administration Thursday over a policy they claim is forcing officials to ignore the law and allowing illegal immigrants to exploit the system.
In a startling allegation, the president of the union representing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers claimed illegal immigrants are "taking advantage" of a new directive allowing some undocumented residents who came to the U.S. as children to stay in the country. Union boss Chris Crane said the policy ends up allowing illegal immigrants to avoid detention without any proof -- particularly so-called "dreamers," or those illegal immigrants who would benefit under the "DREAM Act" proposal, which Congress has not passed but the administration has partially implemented.
Here's top immigration officials describing the border chaos resulting from Obama's lawless amnesty policy...
Unreal. So, how does this make us safer and more secure? How does this maintain our sovereignty, or even the rule of law? You know the answer. It doesn't. So where's DHS or the Justice Department on this? Yeah, you know that too. They're enforcing the lawlessness. Everything's upside down.
By hook or by crook
So if you've stuck with me this long, now it's time to wrap this up and tie both of these stories together. It's pretty simple: allow the illegal aliens that are being allowed under this lawless policy to remain in the country, and then add them onto the voter rolls with all the dead folks, animals and felons (already alluded to in the WaPo piece), while the Feds look the other way. And all this corruption is in spite of the states attempting to purge their voter rolls of ineligibility in hopes of more honest elections.
Bottom line: Whether by the hook of lawless amnesty policy or by the crook of widespread voter fraud, however partisan and hypocritical, the Democrat Left is determined to do whatever might possibly save Obama's reelection chances. Constitutional law be damned.
There is still a solution
So, where's Congress in all of this? We obviously can't depend on the executive offices of the DoJ or DHS to actually uphold constitutional law. Why has this government dropped its checks and balances, and allowed the presidency to be transformed into something that it is not? While there may be various answers to these questions, there is one solution to this plague of corruption and contempt for the rule of law, that is, while there's still a civil society left. And it involves each and every one of your rightful, legal, American VOTES.
“The government belongs to you, this country belongs to you and we need to show it in every election. Good candidates are willing to run when the odds are against them, because you’re for them.” ~ Sen. Jim DeMint
TheRightScoop, TheBlaze, and many other outlets out there covered much of the "FreePAC" event that was held last night in Dallas, TX. In particular, Mike Lee, Rand Paul & Jim Demint, several of the statesmen of the Senate who are working tirelessly to divert this ship from dropping into the abyss, gave rousing speeches at last night's event. But these conservatives need help from the voters to grow their ranks in the Senate. Two Senatorial hopefuls also gave some great, passionate speeches to rally Americans to the booths: Richard Mourdock and Ted Cruz (the latter of which I personally voted for on Wednesday...FYI, today's the last day of early voting & the runoff election is on Tuesday!). These two men will be magnificent additions to the U.S. Senate, genuinely representing the people and working for the conservative cause to correct the wrong path that we find ourselves coasting towards. And by growing these ranks not only in the Senate, but also in the House, We the People can begin to retake our government back from those who would remake America.
But to do it, conservatives, Republicans, independents, those who care about preserving the American dream for the next generation of rightful American citizens, for your children, must come to the ballot box in droves, not only in November, but at every stop along the way. And the first stop is on Tuesday for Texans!
Ha! William Jacobson at LegalInsurrection reveals how those repeated messages that everyone's heard by now from Obama and Elizabeth Warren, you know, the 'you didn't get there on your own' speeches...
...yeah, looks like plagiary isn't only an accusation from a college research paper or a SOTU speech. They lifted this narrative right off of a progressive statist linguist...
This narrative is cribbed almost verbatim from the narrative of George Lakoff, a progressive linguistics activist and Professor at Berkeley. Like Warren, Lakoff was one of the academics who helped frame how the Occupy Wall Street movement presented itself. Lakoff’s writings and theories seek to transform progressive politics and he is a frequent speaker on how progressives can reframe the political debate.
The approach of Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama is a cribbed narrative of the progressive movement which seeks to realign our individual-centered political dialogue around the individual’s indebtedness to the government.
Obama's "you didn't build that" is just the same old progressive message plagiarized and passed on for their masses. He hoped you'd buy it...you didn't.
A month ago, we were tipped off to the FBI's investigation into at least 100 suspected Islamic extremist who've infiltrated our military, of which at least a dozen cases were considered 'serious'. NPR broke the story, and both CNN & FOX reported on it...
The FBI and Department of Defense call these cases "insider threats." They include not just active and reserve military personnel but also individuals who have access to military facilities such as contractors and close family members with dependent ID cards.
Officials would not provide details about the cases and the FBI would not confirm the numbers, but they did say that cases seen as serious could include, among others things, suspects who seem to be planning an attack or were in touch with "dangerous individuals" who were goading them to attack.
Not only are branches of the administration unable to call them terrorist threats (opting instead for 'insider threats'), but I wonder if McCain, Rogers, Boehner, the rest of the House leadership & RINO Senators actually caught the part of that report a month ago about those having "access to military facilities such as contractors and close family members with dependent ID cards," of which they're now attacking the National Security Five over?
And now on Wednesday, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano tells Congress that "we have to add more nuance" to who is and is not considered a terrorist, particularly when they become a part of an elected political party. We'll call them "guests." Unbelievable.
Levin points out on Wednesday's program that all of this underscores the questions raised by Bachmann, Gohmert and the other three Republicans about possible ties between the Muslim Brotherhood and our government, yet the Republican leadership continue to act as though these five are being irrational. Again, what's there to hide?
"Those five, they've been proven right again," says Levin. LISTEN to his integral discussion over at theRightScoop!
Not only have those five been proven right again, but another leg has been kicked out from under the inexcusable attacks of congressional RINOs led by McCain and Boehner.
ADDENDUM I: John Bolton joins Levin, Gingrich, Andy McCarthy and many others who think the attacks launched by McCain and Boehner on the five are absurd...
After explaining the absolute necessity of security clearance procedures in assuring that those working in sensitive areas of our government are "entirely loyal to the United States," however irritating, intrusive or inconvenient they might be, to which he himself has been subjected to innumerable counts, John Bolton says, "that's just too bad" if some have a problem with them, and goes on to defend Bachmann and the four others who are being attacked by members of their own party: "What is wrong with raising the question? Why is even asking whether we're living up to our standards, a legitimate area of congressional oversight, why has that generated this criticism? I'm just mystified by it."
ADDENDUM II: I knew Allen West would eventually be asked about this...and of course, he backs up Bachmann on the Muslim Brotherhood's infiltration...
"...you have to come to an understanding that the Muslim Brotherhood has been in the United States of America for quite some time...so we already know that they're seeking to infiltrate all the different operating systems in the United States of America, political, economical, educational...I've been saying this the whole time...so I think we need to, once again 'oversight', we need to ask the tough questions about what is happening with the infiltration in Washington D.C. When tolerance becomes a one-way street, it will lead to cultural suicide, and that's the road that we're on now."
'Tax increases on the way,' say the Democrat-controlled Senate who have just passed a tax bill that as Levin emphasizes, "will brutalize small business in this country."
WSJ: U.S. Senate Democrats, responding to President Barack Obama's populist message, Wednesday voted to allow the Bush tax cuts to lapse for household income above $250,000, saying the rich should pay more to help control the deficit.
The vote established a partisan tone likely to dominate Congress through the November elections and beyond. Democrats and Republicans are fighting intensely because the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire in a little more than five months and both sides have constituencies that would be affected.
By 51-48, the Senate passed a Democratic plan to extend the Bush tax cuts for couples making less than $250,000. Vice President Joe Biden arrived on the Senate floor shortly before the vote, preparing to cast a vote for the legislation in the event of a tie.
Not one Republican voted for the one-year, $250 billion measure. Sens. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.), Jon Tester (D., Mont.) and Bill Nelson (D., Fla.) voted with their party, in spite of pressure to break with Mr. Obama ahead of competitive re-election races.
Well, besides those three needing to be fired and replaced, now they're all on record, and now it's up to the Republican-controlled House to stop this madness. Listening, Speaker?
What a damn shell game this has turned out to be (as most of us predicted) to move health insurance out of the private market and under centralized top-down government control...
Heritage: Earlier today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released an updated cost estimate for Obamacare that showed that the law will cost less over 10 years than last predicted—because fewer people will be covered.
Now, although Obamacare spends more than $1 trillion, CBO predicts it will leave 30 million Americans uninsured, falling far short of what was promised.
The reason for the changes to the law’s cost projection is the recent Supreme Court ruling. Though the Court allowed Obamacare’s individual mandate to stand as a tax, it deemed a separate provision—the Medicaid expansion—to be unconstitutional. As a result, states can choose not to expand their Medicaid programs and are no longer at risk of losing all their federal Medicaid dollars if they don’t. As Heritage health policy expert Nina Owcharenko explains, “If the Administration’s attempt to centralize health care decision making in Washington was unworkable, its unconstitutional imposition on the states has made its problems even worse.”
Over the last two years, Obamacare has shown itself to be a law muddled with unintended consequences, unworkable provisions, and costly, ineffective new programs. Today’s report from CBO shows that Americans can expect this trend to continue, driving home once again that the health law will not achieve what it promised and needs to be repealed.
So 10% of the population will still remain uninsured. BusinessInsider describes this as 'an expensive half loaf' and concludes...
The bottom line on ACA is that it will increase the deficit by $1.3Tn, it results in tax increases of $514Bn and it covers less than half of the uninsured today. That is called success in Washington. Me? I call it a disaster.
Conservatives came out swinging on Tuesday, defending Bachmann and four other conservatives against the attacks launched by the McCain/Boehner/Rogers establishment. And isn't it peculiar...they viciously attack the guys whose side they're supposed to be on, but cower like gelatinous buffoons when challenging their statist rivals. Whose side are these guys on?!
On Tuesday morning, Newt Gingrich talked to Politicoand defended Bachmann for asking questions (not 'allegations', btw) about the Muslim Brotherhood's relationship with the U.S. government.
When it was pointed out to him that other Republicans, such as Sen. John McCain and House Speaker John Boehner, have hit Bachmann for a form of a witch hunt, he said, "I think those folks are wrong...what is it they're afraid of learning?"
Precisely. And Newt wasn't alone. Andrew McCarthy released another scathing critique of the McCain crew...
PJMedia: Senator John McCain ought to be embarrassed. So should House Speaker John Boehner and Congressman Mike Rogers, the former FBI agent who chairs the Select Committee on Intelligence.
These pillars of the Republican establishment have been championing the cause of Huma Abedin, the deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Ms. Abedin’s name arose, along with several others, in connection with questions pressed by five conservative House Republicans regarding Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the United States government. The GOP establishment, led by McCain, Boehner, and Rogers, has been slamming Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, one of the five House conservatives, over her refusal to back down from concerns over Ms. Abedin.
Michele Bachmann and her four conservative House colleagues — Louie Gohmert, Trent Franks, Lynn Westmorland and Tom Rooney — have called for a serious vetting of government officials who may have Muslim Brotherhood ties. Obviously, it is much needed in light of the Brotherhood’s hostility to America, promotion of terrorism, and propagation of Islamic supremacist ideology. Yet, the Obama administration and the Left are obstructing such a vetting — with strong assistance from Republican leadership in Congress. What is going on here is classic misdirection: While everyone is focused on Huma Abedin and the demagoguing of Michele Bachmann, no one seems to be noticing that the administration — with GOP leadership’s apparent approval — is serially aligning American government policy with Muslim Brotherhood priorities.
Senator McCain is probably hopeless. But perhaps Speaker Boehner and Chairman Rogers could find a way to attack the Muslim Brotherhood rather than their conservative colleagues. Just a thought.
Absolutely, Andy. And of course the Great One continued to add more perspective to the topic this evening...
"Can you tell me since we handed them a supermajority, we conservatives, we tea party constitutionalist, what the hell have they done?!"
Right on, Mark!
theRightScoop:In a great segment tonight Mark Levin defended Michele Bachmann over her Muslim Brotherhood investigation request and called out Speaker Boehner and the head of the House Intelligence Committee Mike Rogers, among others, for their jihad against Michele Bachmann over making a very legitimate and pertinent request. He ended his segment by asking Boehner who he stands with, Michele Bachmann or the Muslim Brotherhood.
Check out this fantastic segment over at the Scoop!
Bottom line: Conservatives must unite and call out these unprincipled establishment bullies who are attacking conservatives congressional members, and arguable aiding Democratic campaigns in this election cycle!
ADDENDUM: Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert also defended Bachmann, himself and three other conservative colleagues yesterday on the Dennis Miller Show (via HuffPuffPo)...
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) fired back at Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Tuesday, calling the senator and some of his colleagues "numbnuts" for criticizing the Tea Party-affiliated congressman's recent allegations that a top Hillary Clinton aide has Islamist ties.
Gohmert, along with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and three other GOP congressmen, recently signed letters insinuating that Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin is affiliated with the controversial Muslim Brotherhood organization through her family. The claims have been widely condemned by members of the Republican party, including House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), and McCain.
During an appearance on "The Dennis Miller Show" radio program, Gohmert vehemently defended the letters:
"Well, it’s obvious that John McCain didn’t even read the letter because of what he said in accusing Michele and us of making these 'horrible' allegations. There were five letters and there were many things that are stated that are facts in each letter. And I wish some of these numbnuts would go out and read the letter before they make these horrible allegations about the 'horrible' accusations we're making. But we also know that John McCain himself had said back in the early stages of stuff going on in Egypt that he was, in his words, 'unalterably opposed to helping the Muslim Brotherhood.' Well, obviously the unalterable person has been altered, so he's okay with it now."
At the beginning of July, there was a report out that the number of workers on federal disability exceeded the population of New York City. Well, it didn't even take a whole month to hit a new record...
CNSNews: The number of workers taking federal disability insurance payments hit yet another record in July, increasing to 8,753,935 during the month from the previous record of 8,733,461 set in June, according to newly released data from the Social Security Administration.
The 8,753,935 workers who took federal disability insurance payments in July exceeded the population of 39 of the 50 states. Only 11 states—California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina and New Jersey—had more people in them than the number of workers on the federal disability insurance rolls in July.
Virginia, the twelfth most-populous state, had 8,096,604 people in 2011, according to the latest Census Bureau estimate. That would make Virginia’s population about 657,331 less than the number of workers who took federal disability insurance payments in July.
Congress enacted legislation in 1956 to add federal disability insurance to the Social Security system. Over the decades, the number of Americans actually working has dramatically declined relative to the number claiming federal disability insurance payments.
Disability, welfare, foodstamps, extended unemployment benefits...and some folks wonder why many of us refer to the rapid growth of dependence on government as the new slavery.
Huh, the Bachmann camp should find this one interesting. I guess it's asking too much to have a Speaker from the Right with a spine, huh? Unconcerned about terrorist infiltration to the point of scolding conservatives, but unwilling to really fight against the socialization of American health care. Somewhere, Nancy Pelosi's smiling...
CNSNews: When asked whether the House Republicans would permit or not permit funding for Obamacare in whatever legislation is enacted to fund the government after Sept. 30--when the current funding legislation runs out--House Speaker John Boehner responded that "our goal would be to make sure the government is funded," thus indicating that House Republicans do plan to fund implementation of Obamacare past Sept. 30.
Unless a special provision is put into the bill to fund the government past Sept. 30 that expressly prohibits funding specifically for the Obamacare regulation that requires health-care plans to cover, without cost-sharing, sterilizations, artificial contraceptives and abortifacients, the House Republicans, by funding implementation of Obamacare, will also be funding implementation of that regulation.
Ahh, that great American RINO leadership. Adamantly fighting against conservatives at every turn, disregarding the call to FIGHT by the people, and bending like reeds in the wind to the statists they enable. We'll need many more 2010 midterm elections, folks, many more!
While McCain, Graham, Boehner and other assorted RINOs get their collective panties in a bunch over Bachmann & conservative Co. simply doing their jobs and asking questions about our government's relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, they might want to look outside their feigned outrage over good buddy Hillary's chief of staff, and observe all the others with terrorist ties that this administration under this president is allowing into our country as 'guests'...meet Hani Nour Eldin...
Whose side is he on again? I'd also ask, whose side is McCain & Co. on?
I know this is asking alot, but...WAKE THE HELL UP, RINOS! It's not all about Huma.
Could it be that more are finally waking up and putting two-and-two together? Perhaps...
TheHill: Two-thirds of likely voters say the weak economy is Washington’s fault, and more blame President Obama than anybody else, according to a new poll for The Hill.
It found that 66 percent believe paltry job growth and slow economic recovery is the result of bad policy. Thirty-four percent say Obama is the most to blame, followed by 23 percent who say Congress is the culprit. Twenty percent point the finger at Wall Street, and 18 percent cite former President George W. Bush.
The results highlight the reelection challenge Obama faces amid dissatisfaction with his first-term performance on the economy.
The poll, conducted for The Hill by Pulse Opinion Research, found 53 percent of voters say Obama has taken the wrong actions and has slowed the economy down. Forty-two percent said he has taken the right actions to revive the economy, while six percent said they were not sure.
And this is why they're called RINOs, folks. Yes, once again, John McCain is leading the establishment herd to derail conservatives' attempts to find the truth.
Remember when McCain was so adamant about the Muslim Brotherhood being excluded from any transitional government in Egypt? Well, apparently he and good buddy Lindsey Graham have changed their collective tune and have a new found adoration for the post-Mubarak regime. Yeah, say what? Adding insult to injury, he now appears to be aiding his fellow progressives across the aisle by attacking conservatives who are attempting to launch an investigation into possible Muslim Brotherhood ties within our own administration! Shouldn't we rely on our elected officials to get to the bottom of any questionable appointments? Apparently, McCain doesn't think so, as well as many other usual suspects. Andrew McCarthy gives us a glimpse of what's going down as a result...
[McCain's]professed anxiety, only a year ago, over the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as his blithe willingness to assume that ElBaradei must be an Islamist coconspirator, are worth remembering today. For the sage has suddenly decided that the Brothers — unapologetic Islamic supremacists who say outright that they are on a “grand jihad” to destroy America and the West — are a pretty swell lot, after all. Instead, McCain reserves his signature “shoot first, think later” ire for the target he has always preferred: conservatives.
The Arizonan took to the Senate floor this week to lambaste five conservative members of the House who, unlike McCain, are actually serious about addressing threats the Brotherhood poses to American interests. McCain’s bipartisan “Islamic democracy” promoters seem content to keep burning through taxpayer trillions until the Brotherhood is finally running every government in the Middle East. To the contrary, the House conservatives — Michele Bachmann (Minn.), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Trent Franks (Ariz.), Tom Rooney (Fla.), and Lynn Westmorland (Ga.) — have concluded that the Brotherhood needs to be regarded as the serious anti-American business that it is.
Toward that end, the quintet is justifiably concerned that the Brotherhood’s sharia agenda — the one to which McCain used to be “unalterably opposed” — is being abetted not just by some Nobel-toting Egyptian progressive, but by officials in highly sensitive positions inside the United States government.
One official about whom they raise questions is Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Ms. Abedin has been an aide since she interned at the White House in 1996 and was assigned to the then–first lady’s staff. The family tie for which she is best known is her husband, Anthony Weiner, the New York Democrat who resigned from Congress in disgrace last year. But it is Ms. Abedin’s parents and brother who have drawn the attention of the five House GOP members. They all have connections to the Muslim Brotherhood — the organization itself or prominent members thereof.
For pointing this out and merely asking the State Department’s inspector general to look into it and report back to Congress — which is part of the IG’s duties under the statute that created his position — McCain & Co. (i.e., his fans in the left-wing media and his admirers in the Republican establishment) are screaming “smear” and “McCarthyism.” McCain’s antipathy toward conservatives (except during election years) is an old story. And it is no secret that he has long been smitten by Mrs. Clinton, whose transnational-progressive leanings mirror his own.
McCarthy concludes:
Senator McCain is an incorrigible vacillator. It is to be expected that he has “evolved” from last year’s claimed opposition to the Brotherhood to a new position, more aligned with that of his friend Secretary Clinton and the Obama administration. Some of us, however, really are “unalterably opposed” to the Muslim Brotherhood. The five House conservatives are asking questions to which the State Department’s own guidelines, to say nothing of common sense, demand answers. Answers not just about Huma Abedin but, far more significantly, about the government’s policy toward virulently anti-American Islamists. Americans deserve nothing less — even if the usual GOP spaghetti spines would prefer to give them nothing, period.
So now, it'd seem as though McCain, Graham, Rogers, Boehner and their usual establishment cohorts (unfortunately, including Marco Rubio...sigh, there's another demerit) are fine with supporting Democrats, and supplying them with campaign ammunition, instead of backing up their conservative colleagues who are simply seeking the results of an internal investigation. What are these guys afraid of? Better yet, what are they hiding?
Well, when RINOs begin aligning themselves with Democrat progressives to attack conservatives, you can guarantee they've just put themselves on Levin's radar. Here's the Great One discussing this on Friday...
And Rush came out swinging this morning in defense of Michele Bachmann and conservative colleagues: "Now, isn't this what congressmen on the Intelligence Committee ought to be asking if there are national security violations or problems involved in a security clearance of somebody with such close ties to avowed enemies?"
ADDENDUM: Levin had Andy McCarthy on Monday night, discussing the specifics of who and what the Muslim Brotherhood is, exploring why McCain and others have flipped from former adversarial positions to now side with the Muslim Brotherhood, and why McRINO, fellow cohorts and libs have launched a vicious assault against Michele Bachmann and four other conservative allies for routinely looking into those within the State Department who have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Check it out over at theRightScoop.
