In a perfect world, total federal spending is constitutionally limited to 18% of GDP, and a balanced federal budget is mandated. The federal government is held accountable for the environment it fosters.

Allocation of Federal Expenditures

Defense and National Security – 5% GDP or 28% Total Federal Outlays
Entitlements – 5% GDP or 28% Total Federal Outlays
Remaining Departments – 5% GDP or 28% Total Federal Outlays
Debt Reduction – 3% GDP or 16% Total Federal Outlays**

Read More →

From the Clinton News Network,™ we have this very telling exchange between Secretary Clinton and Wolf Blitzer.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer she does not want to serve a second term as secretary of state or run for president of the United States.

Blitzer sat down with the former 2008 presidential candidate in Cairo.

Q- If the president is reelected, do you want to serve a second term as secretary of state?

No

Q- Would you like to serve as secretary of defense?

No

Q- Would you like to be vice president of the United States?

No

Q- Would you like to be president of the United States?

No

Q- Why not?

…This is a moment in history where it is almost hard to catch your breath. There are both the tragedies and disasters that we have seen from Haiti to Japan and there are the extraordinary opportunities and challenges that we see right here in Egypt and in the rest of the region…

Q- President of the United States?

You know, I had a wonderful experience running and I am very proud of the support I had and very grateful for the opportunity, but I’m going to be, you know, moving on.

What? No mention of Gaddafi and the ‘cleansing’ taking place in Libya?

Clinton obviously knows that President Obama’s foreign policy is an abject failure, and there’s absolutely no chance she would ever be picked for vice president, secretary of defense or secretary of state under the new Republican administration when it takes hold of the reigns in 2013.

What about a Clinton Presidency?

Putting aside the economic disaster and energy crisis manufactured by the Democrats and their fellow progressive travelers, see “Why not?” above.

Beware the Ides of March– Meltdowns, smack-downs, skyrocketing food prices, soaring energy cost, record deficits, crippling unemployment, declining revenues, insolvent entitlements and no plan to deal with any of the former has taken its toll on the Obama Presidency.

Just 22% of Likely U.S. Voters say the country is heading in the right direction, the lowest level of confidence found since before President Obama’s inauguration in January 2009.

According to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey taken the week ending Sunday, March 13, 72% of voters now say the country is heading down the wrong track, also at its highest level since before the inauguration…

And it only gets worse among those highly ballyhooed Independents.

Read More →

Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was booted from the ballot in the Chicago mayoral race on Monday. An Illinois Appellate Panel ruled 2-1 that Emanuel did not meet the residency requirement to run for mayor.

JUSTICE HOFFMAN delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.
Presiding Justice Hall concurred in the judgment and opinion.
Justice Lampkin dissented, with opinion.

…This history tells us that, for purposes of the “business of the United States” residency exception, this State has for over 150 years recognized a distinction between voters and candidates and has retained the exception only for voters. That revelation, combined with our interpretation of the language of section 3-2 and its interrelation with subsection 3.1-10-5(d) of the Municipal Code, convinces us that section 3-2′s “business of the United States” exception applies only to voters, not to candidates. Accordingly, it cannot avail the candidate here.

For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the candidate neither meets the Municipal Code’s requirement that he have “resided in” Chicago for the year preceding the election in which he seeks to participate nor falls within any exception to the requirement. Accordingly, we disagree with the Board’s conclusion that he is eligible to run for the office of Mayor of the City of Chicago. We reverse the circuit court’s judgment confirming the Board’s decision, set aside the Board’s decision, and, pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 366(a)(5) (Ill. Sup. Ct. R. 366(a)(5) (eff. Feb. 1, 1994)), order that the candidate’s name be excluded (or, if necessary, removed) from the ballot for the February 22, 2011, Chicago mayoral election.

Reversed.

Rahm, how does it feel to be subjected to, and rejected by, “Clear the Field,” an election ploy frequently used by the left to subdue or eliminate the opposition?

Update:

Attorneys for Rahm Emanuel will ask the Illinois Supreme Court to reject over 150 years of legal precedent.

Attorneys for Rahm Emanuel late today asked the Illinois Supreme Court to prevent Chicago elections officials from printing ballots for the Feb. 22 mayor’s election without his name.

Emanuel’s legal team also said they will ask the state’s highest court on Tuesday to hear their appeal of a decision by an appellate court today to knock him off the ballot on the grounds he doesn’t meet residency requirements.

Chicago elections officials said today they have to begin printing the 2 million or so ballots needed for the election as well as preparing electronic voting machines for early voting that begins next Monday.

(Snip…)

During a conference call, elections officials said they would send the ballots to the printer tonight and printing would begin Tuesday.

“We’ve basically hit the go button,” elections spokesman Jim Allen said. “We needed to do this on the 18th, we were waiting for this decision. We going to press now, we have to.”

“A candidate who is removed from the ballots by the court’s has until Feb. 15 to file as a write-in,” Allen said.

Clearly, the bloom is off the rose.

Americans are divided over whether President Barack Obama or his predecessor has performed better in the White House, according to a new national poll.

And a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday also indicates in the battle for Congress, Republicans hold large advantages over the Democrats among independents, men and blue-collar whites. The poll also indicates that Republicans are much more enthusiastic than Democrats to vote.

By 47 to 45 percent, Americans say Obama is a better president than George W. Bush. But that two point margin is down from a 23 point advantage one year ago.

“Democrats may want to think twice about bringing up former President George W. Bush’s name while campaigning this year,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

But, there is some good news for Democrats.

“There are plenty of people who support the Democratic candidate, but many of them are probably not going to actually cast a ballot. In fact, if you look at “unlikely voters” – people who are registered to vote but unlikely to cast a ballot – the Democrats have a six-point edge on the generic ballot question.”

I didn’t say it was really good news…

Because Democrats and their Wall Street cronies continue to lie about their symbiotic partnership and mutually beneficial role in obstructing critically needed regulatory reform of corrupt GSE’s and the sub-prime market they spawned, and the partisan press continues to cover it up, it’s necessary to remind the voters of just how we got here.

Especially since a large part of the American people were apparently sleeping two short years ago, and because our frantic warnings went unheeded.

What was the catalyst?

The Obama Administration has repeated every “mistake” made by FDR.

The result of those failed policies… We’re on the precipice of the Obama Depression.

Sadly, I suspect that nearly half of the American people may be too soft and will find themselves ill-equipped to endure such hardship.

If honesty, integrity and fiscal sanity are not returned to Washington this election cycle, and the “boot” is not removed from the throat of our economic engine, the Great Depression will seem like a cake-walk in comparison.

What follows are some lengthy excerpts from an opinion piece by Caroline Glick, entitled U.S. Pullout: The Sunset for Iraq? It originally appeared in the Jerusalem Post, although I came across it via Real Clear Politics. I’ve included the links, omitted in the original, to some of the source material referenced by Glick.

I normally refrain from the extensive use of excerpts, but in this instance, I’m going to make an exception.

I ask this of our readers: Stop reading the excerpts and follow the links to Friedman’s and Herman’s material, respectively, before continuing. The background material is critically important to understanding the uncanny ability of the political class to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

A troubling milestone arrived on Thursday when the US withdrew its final combat brigade from Iraq. The remaining 50,000 US forces are charged with advising and training the Iraqi military. President Barack Obama has pledged to withdraw them as well by the end of next year.

When US-led allied forces invaded Iraq seven years ago, their action raised the hopes and incited the dreams of millions throughout the region and throughout the world.

Operation Iraqi Freedom promised to bring the light of liberty to a corner of the world that had known none. By doing so, it would inspire and enable men and women throughout the region to believe that they too could be free.

But as the last US combat brigade departed on Thursday, the Iraq they left behind was not an Arab shining city on an Iraqi hill. The Iraq they withdrew from has no government.

Read More →

I was perusing The Foundry over the weekend, and this blog entry by J.D. Foster really stood out. It is timely, the subject matter is ready-made for the mid-terms, it can be condensed into powerful campaign material, it’s accurate and informative, it leaves no wiggle-room, and it is brief. Plus, it has a nifty graph.

The Obama Administration announced “Recovery Summer” in June to highlight the expected gains in jobs and economic strength resulting from Obama’s stimulus.. Well, maybe next summer.

Initial estimates from the Department of Labor (DOL) suggest the economy shed a whopping 131,000 jobs in July while employment for the prior two months was revised down by 97,000 jobs. The unemployment rate held steady in August at 9.5 percent despite a drop in employment, because the number of people in the workforce also declined as workers appear to be giving up in the face of persistent high unemployment.

(Snip…)

This data confirms once again that the $862 billion Obama stimulus legislation—as well as all the subsequent budget-busting legislation Congress has enacted under the rubric of “jobs” bills—has failed, as expected.

Read More →

The Virginia General Assembly passed the Virginia Health Care Freedom Act on Wednesday, March 10th, and Governor Bob McDonnell has said he will sign it.

Here’s the text of the bill:

§ 38.2-3430.1:1. Health insurance coverage not required.

No resident of this Commonwealth, regardless of whether he has or is eligible for health insurance coverage under any policy or program provided by or through his employer, or a plan sponsored by the Commonwealth or the federal government, shall be required to obtain or maintain a policy of individual insurance coverage. No provision of this title shall render a resident of this Commonwealth liable for any penalty, assessment, fee, or fine as a result of his failure to procure or obtain health insurance coverage. This section shall not apply to individuals voluntarily applying for coverage under a state-administered program pursuant to Title XIX or Title XXI of the Social Security Act.

Read More →

According to the CBO, President Obama’s proposals are projected to reduce the federal budget deficit through 2014. That’s the good news. However, the budget deficit “would rise steadily thereafter.”

It’s not a very pretty sight. As indicated in the chart below, the hole just keeps getting deeper.

Read More →

If Tuesday’s oral arguments before the Court were any indication, the individual right to keep and bear arms is fundamental, and there is no way to read Heller that makes the 2nd Amendment anything less than a fundamental right.

JUSTICE KENNEDY: But I thought its rationale was that because of its fundamental character, the right to bear arms must be understood as separate from the qualifying phrase of the militia clause, all people, most people in the United States, the public meaning of the Second Amendment was that there was an individual right to bear arms, and that’s because it was fundamental. If it’s not fundamental, then Heller is wrong, it seems to me.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: I don’t see how you can read — I don’t see how you can read Heller and not take away from it the notion that the Second Amendment, whether you want to label it fundamental or not, was extremely important to the framers in their view of what liberty meant.

Did I mention before?… I’m sure I must have… Justice Scalia rocks…

Read More →

A devastating new video from Keep America Safe asks the question.

Keep America Safe: “100 Hours” from Keep America Safe on Vimeo.

If that wasn’t telling enough…

Read More →

Rush Limbaugh Press Conference in Hawaii

H/T: The RightScoop

We eagerly await your imminent return to broadcast excellence behind the Golden EIB Microphone.

Senate Republicans decline any further participation in the assault against the Intelligence Community.

Republicans on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said Friday that they will no longer participate in an investigation into the Bush administration’s interrogation policies, arguing that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s decision to reexamine allegations of detainee abuse by the CIA would hobble any inquiry.

And Sen. Bond is absolutely correct in his assessment of the current injustice.

“Had Mr. Holder honored the pledge made by the President to look forward, not backwards, we would still be active participants in the Committee’s review,” the ranking Republican on the intelligence panel, Sen. Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, said in a statement. “What current or former CIA employee would be willing to gamble his freedom by answering the Committee’s questions? Indeed, forcing these terror fighters to make this choice is neither fair nor just.”

But a few paragraphs into the story, WaPo gets to the real heart of the matter.

The Republicans’ decision is a blow to the goal of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the committee chairman, to produce a bipartisan report that cannot be described as a political attack on Bush-era policies.

Even though the resulting political gain might be unintentional, a victory is still a victory.

From a recent press release by Rep. Darrell Issa, the Ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee:

“The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has repeatedly and deliberately engaged in systemic fraud,” according to the report’s executive summary. “Both structurally and operationally, ACORN hides behind a paper wall of nonprofit corporate protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of its directors, to launder federal money in order to pursue a partisan political agenda and to manipulate the American electorate. Emerging accounts of widespread deceit and corruption raise the need for a criminal investigation of ACORN.”

Committee investigators have received numerous documents and significant new information from ACORN “whistleblowers” which appear to substantiate these serious allegations. A full congressional/criminal investigation is warranted.

Read More →

The Iranian people do not have the right to have their voices heard, nor do they have the right to participate in free and fair elections. The State grants privileges only to those who conform. That’s the black-and-white of reality.

President Obama’s Cairo Capitulation™ instilled a sense of “hope” throughout much of the Middle East. Apparently, it was only false-hope, because his inaction has since proven beyond all doubt that his speech was just words.

That said, President Obama’s equivocation regarding the clearly fraudulent results of Iran’s presidential election and his refusal to take a stand in defense of Liberty have sealed the fate of the fledgling reform movement, and consequently, the immediate future looks very bleak for the Iranian people.

President Bush stood with the Iraqi people, an oppressive dictator was justly removed and the cause of Liberty was advanced.

Following President Obama’s equivocation and inaction, I’m curious to know how much time will pass before the damage to the cause of Liberty can be undone and the Iranian people are willing to trust the words or motives of an American president?

If the GOP doesn’t adopt and implement a “scorched earth policy” prior to the 2010 mid-terms, it may be too late to save our Republic. It will almost certainly be too late to save the GOP, as it will have lost the will to fight, along with any hope of regaining its credibility with the American electorate.

Our current federal debt obligation is approximately $63.8 Trillion, and will likely increase an additional $3.5 Trillion by the end of 2010. Many economists are predicting a “double-dip” in 2010, and given the 111^th Congress and its propensity to spend other people’s money, the federal debt obligation may exceed $70 Trillion.

Even though many are not yet born, our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are broke. The first baby-boomer will turn 65 in 2011, and the debt obligation only skyrockets from that point going forward. The unemployment rate will undoubtedly reach double-digits later this year, or early 2010. The GOP can go-along-to-get-along and share the blame for the impending fiscal disaster, or stand up and fight both tooth-and-nail against the progressive’s agenda of redistribution, and stop the madness.

If the partisan press successfully deflects the blame for the impending fiscal crisis away from President Obama and the Democrats, even just a little, there will be no GOP advantage in 2012, and no grin. The foundation must be laid now, and the GOP must be battle-ready before the 2010 mid-terms.

Read More →

The future economic outlook, as the result of a government mandated “green” economy, is nothing short of horrific. When added to the current administration’s irresponsible fiscal policies, and coupled with a full frontal-assault against our domestic energy producers, the recipe for disaster is complete. The current economic recession will soon seem like a walk in the park compared to the fiscal nightmare which lies ahead.

The Heritage Foundation has published an excellent analysis, which projects the economic impact resulting from Waxman-Markey, and separates myth from reality.

About those “green” jobs touted by President Obama… It’s virtually impossible to create a positive atmosphere that promotes job growth while the economy is suffering through a $9.6 trillion decline in GDP. Waxman-Markey is no exception.

– Compared to no cap and trade, real GDP losses increase an additional $2 trillion, from $7.4 trillion under the original draft to $9.6 trillion under the new draft;
– Compared to no cap and trade, average unemployment increases an additional 261,000 jobs, from 844,000 lost jobs under the original draft to 1,105,000 lost jobs under the new draft; and
– Peak-year unemployment losses rise by 500,000 jobs, from 2 million under the original draft to 2.5 million under the new draft.

Though the proposed legislation would have little impact on world temperatures, it is a massive energy tax in disguise that promises job losses, income cuts, and a sharp left turn toward big government.

Let this sink in a minute… As opposed to no cap-and-trade, average unemployment will increase an additional 1,105,000 jobs as the result of the government mandated “green” economy.

Read More →

Writing in the NewMajority, Mr. Frum had this to say about Gov. Jon Huntsman’s appointment as Ambassador to China.

It’s a brilliant appointment from the point of view of the political interests of Barack Obama. Gov. Huntsman’s intellect, his popularity in his state, his undoubted conservatism combined with his open-minded new approaches on social issues and the environment – not to mention his enormous personal wealth – positioned him as the natural leader of the reform forces within the GOP. By sending him across the Pacific, President Obama has acted deftly to enhance the continuing dominance of the Republican faction that serves him best. The Limbaugh-Obama axis wins again!

Mr. Frum is just flat-out wrong by all accounts. The real winners are the Republican Party, the conservative mainstream of the American electorate, and more importantly, our constitutional Republic.

Mr. Frum, this really should have been all of the evidence that was required to prove the fatal flaw in your logic.

The enthusiasm we feel for him here at NewMajority has not to date proven infectious: The Republican party of Kent County, Michigan, outright cancelled an event rather than host the governor.

“The voters want and expect us to stand on principle and return to our roots. Unfortunately, by holding an event with Governor Huntsman, we would be doing the exact opposite,” [county party chairwoman Joanne] Voorhees wrote in an e-mail quoted in The Grand Rapids Press.

Clearly, the Republican Party of Kent County, Michigan gets it.

However, Mr. Frum attempts to justify his twisted logic, and with this quote from Benjamin Franklin, he cleverly attempts to label his critics.

“Experience is a hard teacher, but fools will have no other.” – Benjamin Franklin

Mr. Frum, Mr. Franklin was speaking to you.

Without organized voter fraud, John Kennedy would have lost Illinois to Richard Nixon, and therefore, the presidency.

That was 1960…

Fast-forward forty-years to an unsuccessful attempt…

The media group which descended on Florida after the 2000 recount debacle, with hundreds of election lawyers from both sides in tow, had hoped to prove that President Bush was “Selected/Not Elected.”

Read More →