June 21, 2013

THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR

The Tea Party Returns to Washington

by Kalin Bugos
June 20, 2013

The New York Times might think the Tea Party is dead, but the Tea Party disagrees. A little over four years after the first Tea Party protests in 2009, people from around the country gathered on the lawn of the Capitol to celebrate freedom and fight against an intrusive federal government.

Yesterday’s Audit the IRS Rally, hosted by Tea Party Patriots, featured speakers ranging from senators and congressmen to local Tea Party group leaders. Glenn Beck received adoring cheers, as did Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Rand Paul.

Tea Party Patriots announced the event only two weeks ago. With such short notice, it seemed unlikely to get a big turnout. Yet, with the help of Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, hundreds of Americans filled the west lawn, carrying signs and wearing shirts with slogans like “1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual” and “Give me liberty, keep the change.” Others decided IRS no longer means Internal Revenue Service, with signs that said “Illegally Restricting Speech,” “Internal Rotten Scoundrels,” and “Intimidate, Retaliate, Silence.”

“Don’t Tread on Me” flags flew high, as did American flags. Many wore red, white, and blue, while others wore the shirts of their local Tea Party and 9-12 groups.

“No distance is too far to travel,” said Rita Anderson, who came with the Mississippi Tea Party. “The IRS is out of control. They need to be abolished.”

Janice Walker traveled over 1,350 miles from Edmond, Okla., with her daughter, Lynnette Robertson, to be at the rally. After hearing Glenn Beck call for listeners to attend, Walker asked Robertson to join her on the cross-country road trip. “There’s so much going on,” Walker said. “We wanted to stand united with other people with conservative beliefs.”


While it would have been easier for Walker and Robertson to stay at home and watch the rally on C-Span, they felt it was important that they be there. “There are so many Americans who don’t care,” Robertson said. “Ignorance is not okay.”

While the IRS’s targeting of conservatives might have catalyzed the rally, it was only of many things on the minds of attendees. “It’s piling on at once,” Robertson said. “They’re stealing every freedom we have.”

Speakers and attendees alike talked about abolishing the IRS, but also discussed their concerns about the NSA, Benghazi, and the Gang of Eight’s immigration bill. While the issues may have seemed disparate, attendees connected them all to the role of government. Speaker K. Carl Smith explained it well: “Leave us alone and mind your own business,” he said. “Stop trying to be our provider and just be our protector.”

These people aren’t crazy, despite what some in the media would have you believe. They’re normal Americans who are upset by the size of government and outraged that groups like them were targeted by the IRS for their beliefs. They’re watching what’s happening in Washington, and they don’t like it.

Charlie Oldaker of North Carolina had never been involved in politics before, but recent events have convinced him to pay attention and join the Triangle Conservatives Unite overnight bus to D.C. “I have been AWOL up to now,” he said. “Things have just gotten to the point where I felt like I had to show up.”

Jeanne Miller, from Louisville, Kent., came with the Louisville Tea Party. A grandmother of three, Miller worries about the country’s future.

“I think our conservative values are eroding and I think we’re losing our freedom,” she said. “I want my grandchildren to grow up in a free country.”

If the strong turnout at yesterday’s rally is any indication, there’s still a chance they might.

NEWSMAX

FBI Used Drones At Least 4 Separate Times

by Courtney Corin

June 21, 2013

The FBI has been granted clearance from the FAA to use drones for surveillance purposes in the United States at least four times since 2010, The Washington Post reported Friday.

According to documents released by the FAA, the FBI first asked for permission to use drones domestically in 2009, but the authorizations weren't approved until 2010.

The disclosure came a day after FBI Director Robert Mueller admitted Wednesday while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the agency had used drones for surveillance purposes in "very narrowly focused" cases.

The documents do not say where, why, or how long the drones were used, but do support Mueller's testimony.

Mueller added that the FBI is still developing privacy guidelines for drone use.

FBI spokesman Paul Bresson declined to tell The Washington Post how many drones belong to the agency, where they have been used, or how often. However, he did say the agency always seeks authorization from the FAA before dispatching the unmanned aircraft. 

But the FBI did detail one operation following Mueller's testimony in which a drone was used during a seven-day hostage situation in Alabama. 

The FAA records were released after a Freedom of Information Act request was made by the San Francisco-based privacy rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation. However, a large portion of the documents were redacted by the agency, which cited confidentiality as the reason.

The FAA has been instructed by Congress to open up domestic airspace to drones by 2015, and the agency is in the process of developing new safety guidelines for their use now, according to the Post.

RUSH LIMBAUGH

Interview with Sen. Ted Cruz on Immigration

June 19, 2013

February 5, 2013

NEWSMAX
Obama's Payback: US to Sue S&P for Mortgage Ratings
by Newsmax Wires
February 4, 2013

The S&P was the first major credit agency to downgrade the United States' triple-A credit rating.

Now the S&P may pay a heavy price for doing so as the Obama administration gets revenge with legal action against the rating agency.

The New York Times reported Monday: "The Justice Department plans to file civil fraud charges against the nation’s largest credit-ratings agency, Standard & Poor’s, accusing the firm of inflating the ratings of mortgage investments and setting them up for a crash when the financial crisis struck."

The paper said the suit could be filed within days and blamed the agency for bestowing high credit ratings to bundled mortgage securities, making them appear safer than they actually were for investors.

The securities known as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) suffered a meltdown in the wake of the housing debacle that began in 2007.

The Times' story noted that neither Fitch nor Moody's, credit agencies that also gave high credit ratings to such mortgage instruments, have been included in the Justice Department suit.

Fitch or Moody's also have never downgraded the U.S. credit rating.

Before the housing crisis, financial experts had argued that the collateralized debt instruments were actually safer for investors, because they divided a single mortgage among multiple debt instruments, seemingly lowering the risk to investors who purchased any one instrument.

Bank regulators at the federal and state level had approved the use of such derivative instruments as safe for investors.

But the federal government seems intent on lowering boom on the S&P. And the Times claims an there is an additional SEC action the credit agency will soon follow.

The S&P downgrade of the U.S. credit rating in August 2011 came during the Congressional ruckus over the extension of the debt ceiling.

The unprecedented downgrade by S&P raised the ire of the Obama White House.

Immediately after the downgrade, the Obama adminstration lashed out agains S&P.

Britain's Guardian reported at the time: "The U.S. Treasury and the White House launched an unprecedented attack on the 'credibility and integrity' of Standard & Poor's for its decision to downgrade the U.S.'s credit rating, blasting the agency's 'misleading' calculations and its 'breathtaking' refusal to change its mind."

The S&P said it took the action because of weaking confidence with Washington to resolve U.S. fiscal woes.

The S&P stated in August 2011: "More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned . . ."

Read more: http://goo.gl/UILTk

TOWNHALL
Prophets and Losses
by Thomas Sowell
February 5, 2013

Now that the federal government is playing an ever larger role in the economy, a look at Washington's track record seems to be long overdue.
The recent release of the Federal Reserve Board's transcripts of its deliberations back in 2007 shows that their economic prophecies were way off. How much faith should we put in their prophecies today -- or the policies based on those prophecies?

Even after the housing market began its collapse in 2006, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in 2007, "The impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime market seems likely to be contained."

It turned out that financial disasters in the housing market were not "contained," but spread out to affect the whole American economy and economies overseas. Then Chairman Bernanke said: "It is an interesting question why what looks like $100 billion or so of credit losses in the subprime market has been reflected in multiple trillions of dollars of losses in paper wealth."

What is an even more interesting question is why we should put such faith and such power in the hands of a man and an institution that have been so wrong before.

This is not just a question of a bad guess by Ben Bernanke. The previous chairman of the Federal Reserve System, Alan Greenspan, likewise misjudged the consequences of the housing boom and bust. Nor was the Federal Reserve's staff any more accurate in its prophecies. According to the New York Times, "The Fed's own staff still forecast that the economy would avoid a recession."

Today, the economy has not yet fully recovered from the recession that the Federal Reserve System's staff and chairmen thought we would avoid.

We all make mistakes. But we don't all have the enormous and growing power of the Federal Reserve System -- or the seemingly boundless confidence that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke still shows as he intervenes in the economy on a massive scale.

Not only does the Federal Reserve System control the money supply and regulate banks, the Fed's willingness to keep buying hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of government bonds makes it easier for the Obama administration to keep engaging in massive deficit spending that runs up a record-breaking national debt.

The reason that the Federal Reserve can afford to continue buying huge amounts of government bonds is that the Fed is authorized to create its own money out of thin air. They use the fancy term "quantitative easing," instead of saying in plain English that they are essentially just printing more money.

Being wrong is nothing new for the Federal Reserve System. Since this year is the one hundredth anniversary of the Fed's founding, it may be worth looking back at its history.

Read more: http://goo.gl/kDKfA

NATIONAL REVIEW

The Unconventional Ted Cruz 
He's doing precisely what he promised on the campaign trail.
by Andrew Stiles
February 5, 2013

Ted Cruz (R., Texas) has been a United States senator for only 34 days, but already he is making his mark on national politics. His conspicuous presence and aggressive tone have thrilled his conservative cheerleaders, while inducing fits of rage in liberal detractors and Joe Scarborough.

In the past week alone, Cruz has tangled with veteran Democratic spin-master Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) on Meet the Press, sent a tongue-in-cheek letter to Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, introduced legislation to fully repeal Obamacare, and recorded “no” votes on major items, including Hurricane Sandy relief, raising the debt ceiling, filibuster reform, and the confirmation of John Kerry for secretary of state. He also made headlines with his aggressive interrogation of prospective defense secretary Chuck Hagel.

Additionally, Cruz’s quick rise to prominence appears to have offended the sensibilities of the political press. During Hagel’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, I overheard multiple groans from other journalists covering the event whenever Cruz began a pointed line of questioning. On Twitter, they noted their exasperation in more colorful ways.

If anything, the 41-year-old Texan has made clear he does not intend to abide by the conventional playbook for new members: Keep your head down, keep your mouth shut, and learn the ropes before inserting yourself into the national conversation.

That’s not Cruz’s style. More important, it’s not what he campaigned on. “If I go to Washington and just have a good voting record, I will consider myself a failure,” then-candidate Cruz said on the campaign trail in 2012. Last week, in an interview with conservative radio host Mark Levin, Cruz expressed disbelief at “how shocked people are when you actually do what you said you would do.” “In most of America that’s to be expected, and yet oddly enough in Washington, D.C., that seems to be unusual,” he said.
Republicans are delighted that Cruz, whom many regard as a skilled advocate for conservatism, has decided to play such an active role right off the bat. “Any member who has a point of view on a topic should not feel shy about expressing that,” says one Republican Senate aide. “For someone as talented as Ted Cruz, it’s vital that we have eloquent conservatives out there arguing for our side.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) sang Cruz’s praises in an interview with National Review Online, calling the freshman senator “one of the smartest, most articulate guys you’ll ever meet.” “He’s ready for prime time on day one, which is pretty unusual for somebody who just got sworn in,” McConnell says. “He’s a deadly weapon.” He is also “good company,” according to McConnell, who recently accompanied Cruz on a delegation to Israel and Afghanistan.

Republican leaders have already sought to deploy Cruz’s talents in critical areas. In addition to being tapped for coveted slots on the Judiciary and Armed Services Committees, Cruz was named vice chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, where he is likely to play a key role in selecting and advising candidates in the 2014 midterm election.

Senate conservatives are similarly pleased to count Cruz among their ranks. “For the forces of those who favor limited government, Senator Cruz is a powerful addition,” says a conservative GOP Senate aide. “Based on our numbers, and the youth of many of these members, we’re going to have a much stronger voice in the public debate.”

Cruz may consider a solid conservative voting record to be a meaningless metric for success, but he has already established one for himself. The Washington Times noted that Cruz has been on the losing end of all eleven votes he has taken so far this year, a record the Texan is perfectly content with.

For example, he voted against the $50 billion Sandy-relief bill, which he decried as a pork-laden mistake. “Hurricane Sandy inflicted devastating damage on the East Coast, and Congress appropriately responded with hurricane relief,” he said in a statement. “Unfortunately, cynical politicians in Washington could not resist loading up this relief bill with billions in new spending utterly unrelated to Sandy.”

He was one of only three senators to vote against John Kerry’s confirmation to be the next secretary of state, citing the Massachusetts Democrat’s “longstanding less-than-vigorous defense of U.S. national-security issues and, in particular, his long record of supporting treaties and international tribunals that have undermined U.S. sovereignty.”

Cruz was also one of the first Republican lawmakers to voice skepticism about the Senate framework on immigration reform, citing “deep concerns” about the proposed pathway to citizenship. “To allow those who came here illegally to be placed on such a path is both inconsistent with rule of law and profoundly unfair to the millions of legal immigrants who waited years, if not decades, to come to America legally,” he said.

Cruz’s position has put him at odds with Senator Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), who helped draft the framework. The political relationship between the two Hispanic Republicans will certainly be something to watch over the coming months.

Cruz has sought to shape the political discourse in other ways, beyond the confines of Capitol Hill. Last week, he issued a colorful retort to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s call for mass-scale divestment from firearms manufacturers.

Cruz sent a letter to the CEOs of gun makers Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Co, as well as to leaders of Bank of America and TD Bank, financial institutions that Emanuel specifically urged to cease their relationships with the firearms companies. He slammed the mayor’s actions and urged the companies to bring their business to his home state.

“In Texas, we have a more modest view of government,” Cruz wrote. “We do not accept the notion that government officials should behave as bullies, trying to harass or pressure private companies into enlisting in a political lobbying campaign.”

Matt Mackowiak, a Texas-based Republican consultant, praises Cruz as “someone who really understands the outside game,” who spends his weekends “aggressively” traveling the state and meeting with constituents and grassroots organizations. It’s only a matter of time, Mackowiak says, before Cruz masters the inside game and “starts to have a real impact.”

Cruz supporters see him as a natural heir to former senator and soon-to-be Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), one of Cruz’s earliest backers. “DeMint changed the whole paradigm in the Senate, shook it up in way that you can be a freshman and have a national profile and be aggressive and still be effective,” Mackowiak says.

Like DeMint, Cruz has already become a favorite target of the establishment press. The New York Times penned an editorial on January 20 urging Republican leaders to “marginalize lawmakers like Mr. Cruz,” which began: “Ted Cruz, the newly elected Tea Party senator from Texas, embodies the rigidity the public grew to loathe in Congress’s last term.”

The mainstream press was particularly incensed by last week’s Hagel hearing, where Cruz pressed Hagel to explain remarks he made in a 2009 appearance on Al Jazeera. The senator’s staff had rolled a big-screen television into the hearing room to play clips of the appearance, in which Hagel concurred with a number of controversial statements from Al Jazeera viewers — that the United States is “the world’s bully,” and that Israel has been (referring to a specific past event) complicit in a “sickening slaughter.”

Cruz’s blunt approach, and perhaps unorthodox tactics, became a lightning rod for liberal critics, especially after many of them had all but given up defending Hagel, whose performance was widely panned on both sides. Cruz was derided for his “bogus attack” on Hagel, for “hectoring” the nominee, for turning the hearing “into a clown show,” and even for channeling the spirit of Joe McCarthy.

For conservatives, that may be one of the surest signs that Cruz is doing something right.

Read more: http://goo.gl/Qyi7P

January 30, 2013

TOWNHALL

Cruz to Banks Being Bullied by Emanuel Over Guns: Come to Texas

by Katie Pavlich 

January 29, 2013

Late last week, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel sent letters to the CEOs of Bank of America and TD Bank Group urging them to cut off business with gun manufacturers. Both banks operate out of Chicago. Now, freshman Senator Ted Cruz has sent a letter of his own to the same CEOs urging them to do more business in Texas, away from the bully tactics of Chicago.

To the CEOs of Bank of America and TD Bank Group, it has recently been reported that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel sent each of you letters urging that you threaten to cease transacting business with American firearm manufacturers Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Co.

Both of your companies do considerable business in the City of Chicago, and you may be understandably concerned that there are risks to refusing to comply with the demands of a politicians who has earned the nickname, "The Godfather."

In Texas, we have a  more modest view of government.

We do not accept that notion that government officials should behave as bullies, trying to harass or pressure private companies into enlisting in a political lobbying campaign. And we subscribe to the notion, quaint in some quarters, that private companies don't work for elected officials; elected officials work for private citizens.

In light of the reception you have received in the Windy City, please know that Texas would certainly welcome more of your business and the jobs you create. Texans value jobs and value freedom and over 1000 people a day are moving to Texas (often from cities like Chicago), because Texas is where the jobs are.

If I can be of assistance in that regard, please do not hesitate to call.

Cruz cc'ed Emanuel on the letter and thanked Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Co. for their commitment to the Second Amendment.

Read more: http://goo.gl/mBEFT

A Conservative Warrior with a true backbone!  Click ^^pic^^ to read Ted's letter

REDSTATE

Rick Snyder mousetraps Michigan Right To Work opponents

by Moe Lane

January 29, 2013

Hey, do you want to see what it looks like to have your planned judicial delaying tactics trip, fall, and face-plant before it even clears the door?

…Yeah, sorry about the metaphor, but sometimes the convoluted ones are really the only ones that fit. Case in point:

Opponents of the state’s new right-to-work law promised a challenge of the controversial bill that passed the lame-duck Legislature in December. 

But those challenges may become a moot point since Gov. Rick Snyder asked the Michigan Supreme Court on Monday to review the bill and determine whether it passes constitutional muster.

What was going to happen was that labor reform opponents were going to judicial shop until they found a tame judge ready and willing to pass a temporary injunction on the law until it… reached the Michigan Supreme Court. Governor Snyder, knowing this perfectly well, is simply going to move the process along – secure in the knowledge that Right-To-Work has passed muster in the courts time and again, and perhaps even more secure in the knowledge that the Michigan Supreme Court has a comfortable Republican majority, thanks to Democratic MI Supreme Court judge Diane Hathaway’s recent resignation in the face of charges of real estate fraud. Hence, the short-circuiting; the sooner this all gets resolved, the better.

Anyway, go read the Detroit Free Press article: it’s got some awesomely cranky Democrats being quoted in it. Apparently they don’t like it when Republicans are too busy to indulge the Left in its usual judicial Kabuki theater… but, honestly: jumping the queue to the Supreme Court is a perfectly-reasonable response to make to what is often a very childish, and always predictable, strategy by Democrats. If the Democrats don’t like that, then maybe they shouldn’t try to quick-draw an injunction every time they lose an important vote…

Read more: http://goo.gl/gnr5x

Right to Work States

DAILY CALLER

How politicians are planning the return of taxation without representation

by Christopher Bedford

January 30, 2013

It’s been nearly 250 years since the king passed his Stamp Act to pay for all that royal spending, and nearly 240 years since gramps found that generally Intolerable and sent the British running. But the issue is not dead. On the contrary, legislators are again actively attempting to pass what is effectively taxation without representation, and far from being a distant king in England, the villains today are both Democratic and Republican lawmakers from Washington to Tennessee.

That’s right: Taxation without representation is the situation we may find ourselves in soon if the states get the feds to pass their Internet tax law. And stop right there! Because before anyone says Internet taxes are boring, reread the first graph of this riot; and also recall that stamps and tea are way more boring than the Internet, but that didn’t stop grandpa from dressing up in war paint and bashing things up over them.

So in the vein of old Paul Revere, we’re here to spread the alarm and lay out exactly what it is they’re scheming.

How they usually steal money

Typically, politicians confiscate Americans’ money through an origin-based system — essentially, one based on physical presence. So, if we drive to Virginia to buy a book, we pay the sales tax in Virginia and no one asks us where we’re going to read that book. And if we live in a home in Maryland, we pay property taxes and the rest in Maryland. And if we own a business in Washington, D.C., we pay a whole slew of other taxes in Washington, D.C.

While there are plenty of overly complicated deviations from this basic rule, by and large, physical presence is the anchor. This is really, really important, because it keeps the tax man in check: Virginia doesn’t want to make it too expensive to buy a book in Virginia; Maryland doesn’t want to make it too expensive to live in Maryland (plus the homeowner can vote there); and D.C. doesn’t want to make it too difficult to operate a business in D.C.

These are the checks and balances that generally stop the greedy tax man from fleecing the people he relies on. Allowing for the precedent of the 50 states to tax beyond their borders is dangerous as hell, not only to our wallets but to the very way people operate in this country.

But so far, we’ve been talking about physically present, brick & mortar things. So what about the Internet?

How the schemers want to steal (more) money

What the schemers want to do is tax transactions that take place on the Internet. Basically, states want to tax Internet imports. So if we want to sell something on eBay to a buyer in Florida, Florida wants to tax us, even though we have no property, physical presence or political representation in Florida. And if we tell Florida to take a hike, we have to leave the comforts of home and fight that in court in Florida.

All of this, of course, is in the interest of “fairness.” See, legislators point out that Internet businesses should not be able to dodge the taxes that brick & mortar businesses pay every day. But since “fairness” is almost always a code word for an incredibly stupid government idea, the major proposal to fix this is a lot more taxes on a lot more people with a lot less accountability.

Now, the real problem with this is when a state can tax people who have no property, physical presence or political representation in them, that state then has zero incentive not to tax those people out of existence. In fact, making it harder for folks in our state to compete with folks in Florida could serve as an actual incentive for Florida to tax our business! That, friends, is a form of protectionism, and it’s something we’ve seen before.

We’ve seen it before because when states were allowed to engage in protectionist policies, they did. Little known fact: The U.S. Constitution is not the first constitution we had — it just worked a lot better than the first, known as the Articles of Confederation. Under the Articles, Congress was powerless to regulate interstate commerce, leaving the states free to engage in trade wars with each other, which they did with great mirth while the Red Coats ran roughshod over the young country’s attempts to get its shit together. This, to say the least, was bad for American prosperity.

Fortunately, today, as the states fight to see who will get the plunder and who won’t, we have the modern Constitution, which gives Congress the power “To regulate commerce … among the several states.”

Read more: http://goo.gl/N1qjE

January 5, 2013

LIFE NEWS

Hobby Lobby CEO Pens Tragic Letter About Loss of Religious Freedom

by Steven Ertelt

January 4, 2013

The CEO of Hobby Lobby has penned a tragic letter about the loss of religious freedom and liberty in America. The Christian crafts company has been forced by the Obama administration to pay for drugs for its employees in their health care plan that may cause abortions.

Doing so violates the religious freedom of the founders and owners of Hobby Lobby, but the firm has, so far, been unsuccessful in getting courts to give it an exemption while its lawsuit against the HHS mandate continues.

Tens of thousands of Americans have committed to support the Christian crafts store Hobby Lobby on Saturday, January 5 after courts have refused to issued an ruling stopping the Obama HHS mandate.

The letter from Hobby Lobby CEO David Green that LifeNews received follows:

When my family and I started our company 40 years ago, we were working out of a garage on a $600 bank loan, assembling miniature picture frames. Our first retail store wasn’t much bigger than most people’s living rooms, but we had faith that we would succeed if we lived and worked according to God‘s word. From there, Hobby Lobby has become one of the nation’s largest arts and crafts retailers, with more than 500 locations in 41 states. Our children grew up into fine business leaders, and today we run Hobby Lobby together, as a family.

 We’re Christians, and we run our business on Christian principles. I’ve always said that the first two goals of our business are (1) to run our business in harmony with God’s laws, and (2) to focus on people more than money. And that’s what we’ve tried to do. We close early so our employees can see their families at night. We keep our stores closed on Sundays, one of the week’s biggest shopping days, so that our workers and their families can enjoy a day of rest. We believe that it is by God’s grace that Hobby Lobby has endured, and he has blessed us and our employees. We’ve not only added jobs in a weak economy, we’ve raised wages for the past four years in a row. Our full-time employees start at 80% above minimum wage.

But now, our government threatens to change all of that. A new government health care mandate says that our family business MUST provide what I believe are abortion-causing drugs as part of our health insurance. Being Christians, we don’t pay for drugs that might cause abortions, which means that we don’t cover emergency contraception, the morning-after pill or the week-after pill. We believe doing so might end a life after the moment of conception, something that is contrary to our most important beliefs. It goes against the Biblical principles on which we have run this company since day one. If we refuse to comply, we could face $1.3 million PER DAY in government fines.

Our government threatens to fine job creators in a bad economy. Our government threatens to fine a company that’s raised wages four years running. Our government threatens to fine a family for running its business according to its beliefs. It’s not right. I know people will say we ought to follow the rules; that it’s the same for everybody. But that’s not true. The government has exempted thousands of companies from this mandate, for reasons of convenience or cost. But it won’t exempt them for reasons of religious belief.

So, Hobby Lobby – and my family – are forced to make a choice. With great reluctance, we filed a lawsuit today, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, asking a federal court to stop this mandate before it hurts our business. We don’t like to go running into court, but we no longer have a choice. We believe people are more important than the bottom line and that honoring God is more important than turning a profit.

My family has lived the American dream. We want to continue growing our company and providing great jobs for thousands of employees, but the government is going to make that much more difficult. The government is forcing us to choose between following our faith and following the law. I say that’s a choice no American – and no American business – should have to make.

Sincerely,

David Green
CEO and Founder of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.

HOT AIR

Beltway Republicans planning to intervene more in GOP primaries

by Allahpundit
January 4, 2013

I remember when the NRSC took such intense heat for endorsing Charlie Crist in the primary over Rubio that then-chair John Cornyn vowed to stay out of primaries in the future. Three years and several Sharron Angles/Christine O’Donnells/Todd Akins later, the tune has changed among the broader Republican establishment. Question for readers: Is this worthy of automatic opposition on “damn these establishment RINOs” grounds or is it more of a wait-and-see thing? My sense from the comments here after Akin blew up over his rape remarks was that even a lot of grassroots conservatives wished he’d been torpedoed in the primary by a more electable candidate. Maybe that buys moderates a tiny bit of leeway among the base to push more “electable” candidates. At least until they go and back another Crist.

High-profile Senate Republicans are going to try to pre-empt bloody primaries with aggressive, early recruitment and support — effectively trying to clear fields…

Further, top Senate Republicans have made clear to outside groups that they’d like the third parties to not exist simply as entities that air attack ads against Democrats in general elections but to play a more hands-on role in GOP primaries…

Translation into non-Senate speak: The big-money establishment Republican super PACs like American Crossroads need to serve as a counterbalance in primaries to conservative outfits such as Club for Growth and former Sen. Jim DeMint’s Senate Conservatives Fund…

“To be effective, you have to go well before the primary and identify well-qualified candidates using a number of criteria,” said one source familiar with Crossroads’s thinking. “It’s not who’s more or less conservative, but putting together a more discriminating evaluation of candidates.”…

“When a center-right Republican is in a primary and is being targeted by some group as a RINO, we’re going to make sure we have their back,” said LaTourette. “Not just with speeches and press releases but with money.”

Better recruitment would sound wonderful if not for the fact that the establishment’s talent evaluators decided that this soulless careerist was a worthier candidate than Marco Rubio, a guy who’s already being touted as a potential Republican presidential nominee in 2016. Is there any situation where American Crossroads would endorse a more impressive, more conservative longshot over an ostensibly more “electable” centrist (especially a centrist incumbent)? My agita here isn’t over Steve LaTourette’s RINO Super PAC wading into a primary to try to torpedo a conservative, it’s the fear that it’ll wade in to torpedo impressive conservatives like Mike Lee or Ron Johnson or Pat Toomey or Ted Cruz or any of the other credible right-wing candidates who’ve been elected since 2010. Whom do you trust, among either the establishment or the grassroots, to consistently reliably discern “worthy” candidates from unworthy ones?

Read more: http://goo.gl/RBdDe

BREITBART

Cruz Joins Senate, Moves to Repeal Obamacare

by Ben Shapiro

January 4, 2013

Tea Party favorite and newly-elected Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) took his oath of office today – and immediately moved to take on President Obama’s chief legislative accomplishment, Obamacare. Cruz is the first Hispanic to serve as a Texas Senator.

His first bill, Cruz said, would move to strike “every syllable of every word” of Obamacare. With the retirement of Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and the increasing battle between Tea Party conservatives and Republican Party establishment types, Cruz is set to become a leader early in his tenure – and grassroots conservatives are already rallying to his cause.

Cruz, 42, is slated to appear on Fox News Sunday. He is a Harvard Law graduate, the first Hispanic to clerk for a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (William Rehnquist), and a former Department of Justice lawyer. His rise has been so swift that he is already vice-chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Read more: http://goo.gl/e8ZXf

TOWNHALL
Tim Scott Responds to "Ridiculous" NAACP Smear
by Guy Benson
January 4, 2013

Fresh off of his induction into Congress' upper chamber, Sen. Tim Scott fired back at NAACP president Ben Jealous, who stated on CNN that Scott doesn't "believe in" civil rights.  From Greta Van Susteren's Fox News program last night.

If you click through to the YouTube page, the very first commenter calls Scott a "Nazi" and an "Uncle Tom."  Lovely.  This is the brand of invective that conservatives of color regularly endure from the self-appointed titans of tolerance.  The Senator comes across as reasonable, cheerful and passionate throughout his conversation with Greta.  He shrugs off Jealous' slander with grace and composure, a feat I'm not sure I could accomplish.  (I might be slightly more inclined to borrow John Boehner's turn of phrase, given the implications of what Jealous said).  He slaps aside the accusation as "ridiculous" and "baseless," but uses most of his airtime to promote conservative values.  Rather than exploiting the segment as an opportunity to vent some (justifiable) indignation, he stays upbeat and positive:

It appears the people of South Carolina have themselves a very fine junior United States Senator.

Read more: http://goo.gl/4Sa1k

December 11, 2012

NEWSMAX 
Fiscal Cliff Deadline May Come Sooner Than Expected
by Stephen Feller 
December 10, 2012 

While the tax increases and spending cuts of the fiscal cliff don’t kick in until Jan. 1, if Congress wants to do something to stop the country from going over the cliff they’ll need to make a deal and get it passed much sooner than that.

Congress will recess for the holidays on Dec. 21, so President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House John Boehner have until Dec. 15 to reach a deal, so that legislation can be written and printed with enough time for it to be read and voted on before the break, reported NBC News.

On Jan. 1, the Bush-era tax cuts are set to automatically expire for all income levels and about $110 billion in cuts to the Pentagon budget will begin to be phased in unless Congress passes legislation to override them.

Congress has made a habit during the last few years of waiting until the last possible second to make deals when faced with the threat of extreme calamity. Debates and resulting legislation on tax cut extensions, the debt ceiling debate, and the payroll tax holiday are clear examples of this since 2010.

"The Congress doesn't work on the clock; it works on the calendar," Republican Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri told Reuters. "There is just that required moment when something has to happen because you've run out of time. [In the meantime] there is a desire to maximize your negotiating position until you realize you don't have any room any more to negotiate. It almost invariably works that way."

Obama and Boehner met Sunday at the White House in a private meeting that both agreed not to discuss. The meeting comes days after reports that the two leaders had failed to discuss the cliff last week or speak at all to one another at the White House Christmas party they both attended on Oct. 5.

The money-saving and revenue-generating provisions were put in place by Congress with approval of the Budget Control Act of 2011. The act provided for a super-committee to find areas of the budget that could be slashed with Congressional approval or risk having the automatic cuts kick in. 

After much discussion of the fiscal cliff in the presidential and congressional races, Congress did not start working on a solution until Obama was re-elected.

Negotiations have stalled on Democratic demands that taxes be increased back to Clinton-era levels for the top 2 percent of earners, while Republicans would prefer to reduce spending and keep tax rates unchanged.

In the last week or two, however, some Republicans have walked back their position that nobody’s taxes should go up. 

"There is a growing group of folks looking at this and realizing that we don't have a lot of cards as it relates to the tax issue before year end," Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said on "Fox News Sunday."

If Republicans decide to go with Democratic efforts to raise taxes, Corker added, "the focus then shifts to entitlements and maybe it puts us in a place where we actually can do something that really saves the nation."

Read more: http://goo.gl/Hv7n9

REAL CLEAR POLITICS

Taxing the Poor

by Thomas Sowell

December 11, 2012

With all the talk about taxing the rich, we hear very little talk about taxing the poor. Yet the marginal tax rate on someone living in poverty can sometimes be higher than the marginal tax rate on millionaires.

While it is true that nearly half the households in the country pay no income tax at all, the apparently simple word "tax" has many complications that can be a challenge for even professional economists to untangle.

If you define a tax as only those things that the government chooses to call a tax, you get a radically different picture from what you get when you say, "If it looks like a tax, acts like a tax and takes away your resources like a tax, then it's a tax."

One of the biggest, and one of the oldest, taxes in this latter sense is inflation. Governments have stolen their people's resources this way, not just for centuries, but for thousands of years.

Hyperinflation can take virtually your entire life's savings, without the government having to bother raising the official tax rate at all. The Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1920s had thousands of printing presses turning out vast amounts of money, which the government could then spend to pay for whatever it wanted to pay for.

Of course, prices skyrocketed with vastly more money in circulation. Many people's life savings would not buy a loaf of bread. For all practical purposes, they had been robbed, big time.

A rising demagogue coined the phrase "starving billionaires," because even a billion Deutschmarks was not enough to feed your family. That demagogue was Adolf Hitler, and the public's loss of faith in their irresponsible government may well have contributed toward his Nazi movement's growth.

Most inflation does not reach that level, but the government can quietly steal a lot of your wealth with much lower rates of inflation. For example a $100 bill at the end of the 20th century would buy less than a $20 bill would buy in 1960.

If you put $1,000 in your piggy bank in 1960 and took it out to spend in 2000, you would discover that your money had, over time, lost 80 percent of its value.

Despite all the political rhetoric today about how nobody's taxes will be raised, except for "the rich," inflation transfers a percentage of everybody's wealth to a government that expands the money supply. Moreover, inflation takes the same percentage from the poorest person in the country as it does from the richest.

That's not all. Income taxes only transfer money from your current income to the government, but it does not touch whatever money you may have saved over the years. With inflation, the government takes the same cut out of both.

It is bad enough when the poorest have to turn over the same share of their assets to the government as the richest do, but it is grotesque when the government puts a bigger bite on the poorest. This can happen because the rich can more easily convert their assets from money into things like real estate, gold or other assets whose value rises with inflation. But a welfare mother is unlikely to be able to buy real estate or gold. She can put a few dollars aside in a jar somewhere. But wherever she may hide it, inflation can steal value from it without having to lay a hand on it.

No wonder the Federal Reserve uses fancy words like "quantitative easing," instead of saying in plain English that they are essentially just printing more money.

The biggest and most deadly "tax" rate on the poor comes from a loss of various welfare state benefits-- food stamps, housing subsidies and the like-- if their income goes up.

Someone who is trying to climb out of poverty by working their way up can easily reach a point where a $10,000 increase in pay can cost them $15,000 in lost benefits that they no longer qualify for. That amounts to a marginal tax rate of 150 percent-- far more than millionaires pay. Some government policies help some people at the expense of other people. But some policies can hurt welfare recipients, the taxpayers and others, all at the same time, even though in different ways.

Why? Because we are too easily impressed by lofty political rhetoric and too little interested in the reality behind the words. 

Read more: http://goo.gl/7mwuP

December 7, 2012

NEWSMAX
DeMint Move Ignites Talk of 2016 Presidential Run
by David A. Patten
December 6, 2012

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint’s surprise announcement that he will leave the U.S. Senate in January to take over leadership of the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank has ignited speculation among grass-roots conservatives that DeMint may use the new post as a launching pad for a presidential bid in 2016.

“Jim DeMint will have a bigger microphone than before,” conservative direct-marketing pioneer Richard Viguerie tells Newsmax. “If he wants to, this opens up a lot more opportunities for him. I think there’s a decent chance that he’ll be a serious presidential candidate in four years.”

Viguerie called the move to Heritage “an intermediate step.”

“It’s going to be a boon to the cause, to Heritage,” he said. “And it gives [DeMint] a major opportunity to run for president in four years. And if so, he would be the instant front-runner among most conservatives.”

DeMint already had effectively term-limited himself by announcing he would not seek another six years in the Senate. When GOP hopes of seizing control of the Senate were dashed in November, he was looking at four more years of life as a back-bencher, with relatively little influence over legislation passed by the upper chamber.

But now, grass-roots sources tell Newsmax, the prospect of a DeMint-for-president campaign is creating significant buzz among movement conservatives.

“I was totally shocked,” Tea Party Express Chairwoman Amy Kremer tells Newsmax. “When I saw the news Thursday morning, tears welled up in my eyes.

“He is our rock in the United States Senate,” she adds. “But at the same time, I know Jim DeMint, and he is not going anywhere. I have always thought he would make a great president, and I have always thought he should make a run. …I think this is probably a step in that direction, and I hope it is. Because he’s not just a senator, he’s a statesman.”

In part, DeMint has at times contributed to that speculation. In November, in an interview with McClatchy Newspapers, he backed off his previous, unequivocal insistence that he had no interest in running for president.

Nor is this the first time DeMint’s name has been linked to Oval Office aspirations. In March 2011, he addressed a conference of conservatives in Iowa. That trip to the first GOP caucus state triggered widespread speculation that he might be considering tossing his hat in the ring. DeMint quickly squelched those rumors, however.

Thursday evening, DeMint was asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer if he would have stayed in the Senate had GOP standard-bearer Mitt Romney won the presidency. Had Romney won, any path for DeMint to run in 2016 would likely have vanished.

“I would have thought differently about it,” DeMint confessed. “But I told [outgoing Heritage chief] Ed [Feulner] four years ago, half-jokingly, that when people ask me to run for president, I said, ‘The only president I want to be is president of the Heritage Foundation. Because they’re about ideas, and their ideas are backed up by solid research. And the thing that breaks my heart is [that] as Republicans we’re not doing a good job of convincing Americans that we care about every one of them, and that our policies are going to make their lives better.’”

Shortly after the announcement that he would be taking over the Heritage Foundation, DeMint said that he felt he would be more influential in the national debate at Heritage than in the Senate.

Citing his marketing background and private-sector experience prior to coming to Washington, DeMint said: “A lot of my role in the Senate has been stopping bad things and saying no to bad things. But we need to do more than that, and tell Americans what we’re for.

Read more: http://goo.gl/p5clI

TOWNHALL
"Political Games" From Whom?
by Carol Platt Liebau 
December 6, 2012

The White House has effectively conceded that the President's "plan" (note the sarcastic scare quotes) for avoiding the fiscal cliff cannot even pass the US Senate, which is controlled by Democrats.

“We don’t have 60 votes in the Senate,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said, adding the White House was “very confident” that Democrats support the principles outlined in Obama’s plan.

Please.  Not only does the Obama plan not have the sixty votes required to overcome a filibuster, it doesn't even have the fifty-one votes it would need to pass (note that Senator McConnell promised a floor vote, meaning that Republicans would agree to a straight up-or-down vote).  And the Democrats' refusal to vote on it reveals just how unpopular it is -- if Democrats thought the President's plan would be popular in anything besides the vaguest outlines (what passes in Washington for "principle"), the Democrats would quickly vote on it and force the Republicans to sustain an unpopular filibuster.  The truth is that even the Democrats don't support it -- and they don't want to be on the record one way or the other.

But hey, just for the record, this isn't the first time the US Senate has effectively rejected the President's budgetary policies.  After all, senators voted down his proposed 2013 budget 99-0; his 2012 budget fell on a 97-0 vote.

In any case, as anyone knows, it isn't that hard to agree in "principle" if the "principles" are abstract enough.  No doubt 100% of Congress would agree with the principle that we ought to "do what's best for the American people" -- the tough part of leadership is in the details . . . the part the President regularly outsources to Congress.  So much for leadership.

So there's no small irony here when Jay Carney accuses Republicans of playing "political games that aren't serious."

Read more: http://goo.gl/ADecr

WASHINGTON POST

It's Nothing But a Power Play

by Charles Krauthammer

December 6, 2012

Let’s understand President Obama’s strategy in the “fiscal cliff” negotiations. It has nothing to do with economics or real fiscal reform. This is entirely about politics. It’s Phase 2 of the 2012 campaign. The election returned him to office. The fiscal cliff negotiations are designed to break the Republican opposition and grant him political supremacy, something he thinks he earned with his landslide 2.8-point victory margin on Election Day.

This is why he sent Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to the Republicans to convey not a negotiating offer but a demand for unconditional surrender. House Speaker John Boehner had made a peace offering of $800 billion in new revenue. Geithner pocketed Boehner’s $800 billion, doubled it to $1.6 trillion, offered risible cuts that in 2013 would actually be exceeded by new stimulus spending and then demanded that Congress turn over to the president all power over the debt ceiling.

Boehner was stunned. Mitch McConnell laughed out loud. In nobler days, they’d have offered Geithner a pistol and an early-morning appointment at Weehawken. Alas, Boehner gave again, coming back a week later with spending-cut suggestions — as demanded by Geithner — only to have them dismissed with a wave of the hand.

What’s going on here? Having taken Boehner’s sword, and then his shirt, Obama sent Geithner to demand Boehner’s trousers. Perhaps this is what Obama means by a balanced approach.

He pretends that Boehner’s offer to raise revenue by eliminating deductions rather than by raising rates is fiscally impossible.

But on July 22, 2011, Obama had said that “$1.2 trillion in additional revenues . . . could be accomplished without hiking tax rates, but could simply be accomplished by eliminating loopholes, eliminating some deductions and engaging in a tax reform process.” Which is exactly what the Republicans are offering today.

You’ve heard of situational ethics. This is situational mathematics.

As for the alleged curative effect on debt of Obama’s tax-rate demand — the full rate hike on the “rich” would have reduced the 2012 deficit from $1.10 trillion to $1.02 trillion.

That’s a joke, a rounding error.

Such nonsense abounds because Obama’s objective in these negotiations is not economic but political: not to solve the debt crisis but to fracture the Republican majority in the House. Get Boehner to cave, pass the tax hike with Democratic votes provided by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and let the Republican civil war begin.

It doesn’t even matter whether Boehner gets deposed as speaker. Either way, the Republican House would be neutered, giving Obama a free hand to dominate Washington and fashion the entitlement state of his liking.

This is partisan zero-sum politics. Nothing more. Obama has never shown interest in genuine debt reduction. He does nothing for two years, then spends the next two ignoring his own debt-reduction commission. In less than four years, he has increased U.S. public debt by a staggering 83 percent. As a percentage of gross domestic product, the real marker of national solvency, it has spiked from 45 percent to 70 percent.

Obama has never once publicly suggested a structural cut in entitlements. On the contrary, he created an entirely new entitlement — Obamacare — that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will increase spending by $1.7 trillion over 11 years.

What’s he thinking? Doesn’t Obama see looming ahead the real economic cliff — a European-like collapse under the burden of unsustainable debt? Perhaps, but he wants to complete his avowedly transformational social-democratic agenda first and let his successors — likely Republican — act as tax collectors on the middle class (where the real money is) and takers of subsidies from the mouths of babes.

Or possibly Obama will get fiscal religion and undertake tax and entitlement reform in his second term — but only after having destroyed the Republican opposition so that he can carry out the reformation on his own ideological terms.

What should Republicans do? Stop giving stuff away. If Obama remains intransigent, let him be the one to take us over the cliff. And then let the new House, which is sworn in weeks before the president, immediately introduce and pass a full across-the-board restoration of the George W. Bush tax cuts.

Obama will counter with the usual all-but-the-rich tax cut — as the markets gyrate and the economy begins to wobble under his feet.

Result? We’re back to square one, but with a more level playing field. The risk to Obama will be rising and the debt ceiling will be looming. Most important of all, however, Republicans will still be in possession of their unity, their self-respect — and their trousers.

Read more: http://goo.gl/2aJbH