1. The Perry Campaign Gets a Life Line

2. The Bachmann-Santorum Rule: We Can Be Extorted

3. Obama administration gives $433m no-bid contract to Democratic donor.

4. Occupy “movement” criminals depicted as “fringe”. Really?

5. The Ex-SEIU Boss, Donor Dollars, No-Bid Contracts & Testing Anthrax Vaccines on Kids

6. Now is Not the Time to Shirk From Obamacare Fight

1. The Perry Campaign Gets a Life Line

Rick Perry’s debate gaffe last week will go in the annals of political history as one of the most embarrassing gaffes on a Presidential primary debate stage. His recovery the next day will be studied by future campaigns as the textbook example of damage control. His Saturday night debate performance in South Carolina gets him the complete redemption he needs.In South Carolina Saturday night the Rick Perry so many people have been hoping would come out to play, came out to win. He gave a sharp answer on dealing with Iran and Pakistan and captured the tea party zeitgeist by saying we should start each year at zero in our foreign aid budgets, including with Israel. He then went on to explain that those countries, like Israel, that are shown to be our friends would get money in the foreign aid budget.This then descended into a lecture on zero based budgeting, nearly getting him an amen from Newt Gingrich.The star moment for Perry, however, came when he took after Ron Paul over enhanced interrogation techniques. Everyone knows Ron Paul’s foreign policy is nuttier than a pecan grove at harvest, but no one until Rick Perry Saturday night has had the nerve to say so.On the opposite end of alternatives to Romney we want to do well, Herman Cain showed his foreign policy views are not yet ready for prime time. He fell back again and again on either not knowing the answer or wanting help from others. His campaign’s theme of drawing on the experts regardless of the candidate’s background is becoming more and more hollow considering the experts running his campaign were picked by Herman Cain.But there is good news for both Perry and Cain in the latest polling.Please click here for the rest of the post.

2. The Bachmann-Santorum Rule: We Can Be Extorted

There was one moment in the CBS News debate that has not gotten a lot of attention and should get a great deal of attention.CBS News asked Rick Perry about Pakistan. Perry responded that Pakistan is not being controlled by its political leaders, but rather by its secret police and military. Likewise, Pakistan should not get foreign aid unless it can show it is our friend and right now it looks to be anything but our friend.You can hear Rick Perry in his own words right here.This was followed up by perhaps the most dangerous and willfully naive foreign policy view I have ever heard expressed by Republicans. Michele Bachmann had to disagree with Rick Perry and, by the way, Newt Gingrich. Rick Santorum chimed in to agree with Michele Bachmann.We can call it the Bachmann-Santorum policy. It is to the left of Barack Obama. And if it is implemented, it will see the world turn into a far more dangerous place with many of us getting killed.Please click here for the rest of the post.

3. Obama administration gives $433m no-bid contract to Democratic donor.

The last time I checked, didn’t the Left call this sort of thing ‘crony capitalism?’”Over the last year, the Obama administration has aggressively pushed a $433-million plan to buy an experimental smallpox drug, despite uncertainty over whether it is needed or will work.”Senior officials have taken unusual steps to secure the contract for New York-based Siga Technologies Inc., whose controlling shareholder is billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, one of the world’s richest men and a longtime Democratic Party donor.”Please click here for the rest of the post.

4. Occupy “movement” criminals depicted as “fringe”. Really?

This evening, USA Today published a story describing the law-breaking participants in the “Occupy movement” as a “violent fringe”. But how can a movement whose entire existence is predicated upon breaking the law be anything but criminal and destined to incite violence? The mere concept of this “occupation” promotes the idea that the occupiers would perpetrate an act that is bound to break multiple laws in virtually every location where these people have erected their disease- and crime-infested tent cities.So at what point does anecdotal evidence indicate a trend and show that this is not “fringe” behavior? When do hundreds of incidents of mass lawbreaking, violence, rape and murder demonstrate that this anti-social behavior is standard procedure from these crowds and not the exception? BigGovernment.com is maintaining a running total of the violations rung up by the Occupy crew.Please click here for the rest of the post.

5. The Ex-SEIU Boss, Donor Dollars, No-Bid Contracts & Testing Anthrax Vaccines on Kids

According to the Los Angeles Times, with the exception of existing in locked freezers in Russia and U.S. labs, the smallpox virus was eradicated in 1978. Yet, in a no-bid contract, the Obama administration has given $443 million of American taxpayers’ money for a “experimental smallpox drug” to a bio-defense company, Siga, controlled by billionaire Democrat-donor Ron Perleman and whose board ex-SEIU boss Andy Stern sits on.. . . .While the Times notes that there is no credible evidence that the threat of a smallpox outbreak is imminent and that the U.S. already owns enough vaccine to treat the entire population, the Obama administration’s ties to Siga become even more questionable, considering the recent recommendation to start experimenting with an Anthrax vaccine on America’s children.Please click here for the rest of the post.

6. Now is Not the Time to Shirk From Obamacare Fight

By now, we are all intimately acquainted with the bromide that “Republican’s only control one-half of one-third of government.” Nonetheless, we must remember that, in the realm of appropriations, they control the most consequential body of government; the House of Representatives. Unfortunately, almost a year into their stewardship of that body, they have shown only a tepid inclination to defund Obamacare.Despite months of diligent work on appropriations bills, House (and Senate) Republicans are abdicating their budget powers to Harry Reid’s “minibus” scheme – a scheme in which the House is jettisoned from two-thirds of the process, while conference committees adopt the spending bills favored by Senate Democrats [more here and here]. Next week, the Senate will vote on the second minibus bill. Reid is using the House-passed Energy-Water bill (HR 2354) as a vehicle to carry the Financial Services (S.1573) and State-Foreign Operations (S.1601) bills (even though they were never voted on by the full House). So we will have one appropriations bill that covers such disparate expenditures as the IRS and the State Department. But don’t worry, it’s a minibus bill; not an Omnibus bill. Hence, Republicans will get the green light to vote for it. All but 14 of them already voted for cloture to proceed with the ‘don’t call it an omnibus bill.’Here are the issues with Reid minibus number two.Please click here for the rest of the post.