RedState Morning Briefing
For March 19, 2010

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From CNN:

TUNE-IN ALERT: head to CNN.com or CNN.com/LIVE at 12:00 p.m. ET today for a special sneak peek at what we’re calling John King, USA BETA. It will be a true behind-the-scenes experience where internet users can see how a show comes together in the final stages. Guests include Ron Paul, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, Erick Erickson, Jane Hamsher and Aisha Taylor

It’s been a long week. Actually, it’s been a long 14 months.

For the last year, those of us who love this grand experiment called America have seen assault after assault waged against our liberties, our freedoms and our Constitution. And sometime in the next 72 hours, we will know whether those who wish to impose their vision of an America where freedoms and liberties give way to the all-knowing, all-controlling state from which our Founders freed us, will be able to strike a massive blow against the America we love.

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As the battle over earmarks heats up again in Congress, Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) wants us to know his flag is firmly planted in the pro-earmarking camp. Like his colleague Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, Sen. Bennett claims to have a far better understanding of his state’s needs than an “unelected bureaucrat” in Washington, D.C.

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On the heels of a Rasmussen poll suggesting Democrats should worry about Senator Barbara Boxer’s re-election chances, comes worse news from Field for the three term incumbent.

The raw numbers: Campbell 44/Boxer 43, Fiorina 44/Boxer 45, DeVore 41/Boxer 45, 3.7% Margin of Error. My model’s win percentages: DeVore 29% , Fiorina 44%, and Campbell 55%.

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H/t to Dan Riehl for the video.

A minority in congress plus the American people equals a majority … America, we can win this fight.

Republicans in Congress are hitting their stride at just the right time in this debate. The Democrats and the Obama administration are facing precipitous drops in there polling in general and in 2010 electoral polling specifically.

The media arms of the Democrat Party are doing their best to get the appropriate message out, only to find that “I won” isn’t as compelling as it once was.

As we move forward, and more come to reject the Unicorn and Pixie dust style of governance ever embraced by the Democrat Party, we will see clearly their frustration. We will see it as they abuse their constituents. We will see it as they abuse their own caucus. And most of all, we will see it in the disregard they show for the Constitution.

We will see all of this and be tempted to give up, but we must not.

In those times we should remember the words of Rep. Pence and others like him.

A minority in congress plus the American people equals a majority … America, we can win this fight.

Aaron B. Gardner

I distinctly heard the sound of a switchblade opening there.

This is it, the battle has taken shape and the lines have clearly been drawn. The Republicans, apparently led by the more conservative members, are turning up the heat.

Those in the House should think long and hard as to whether this is the road they wish to travel.

For the sake of the Nation, I hope they choose wisely*.

Aaron B. Gardner

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Senator Tom Coburn Thursday put his colleagues in the lower chamber on advance notice, vowing to torpedo any promises of patronage made by President Barack Obama to wavering House Democrats.

Coburn promised at a health care presser on Capitol Hill today that he would exercise his senatorial prerogative to hold all nominations of vote-switching House Democrats who lose their reelection bids this Fall. The new maneuver aimed at scuttling Democratic vote whipping efforts sent an unmistakeable message to the White House: Senate Republicans will do everything in their power to prevent the bill’s passage, even if that means preemptively expending political capital.

“I want to send a couple messages to my colleagues in the House. If you voted no and you vote yes and you lose your election, and you think any nomination to a federal position isn’t going to held in the Senate, I’ve got news for you,” Coburn, a physician whose been among the Senate’s most vocal opponents of the bill, said. “It’s going to be held.”

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“Mr. President, I send an unprinted Amendment to the desk, and ask for its immediate consideration,” are the exact words that any U.S. Senator can say when offering this amendment on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

This amendment, below, should be walked down to the floor of the U.S. Senate and voted on prior to any vote on the floor of the U.S. House, in order to prepare the legal battlefield for the court challenge against the Alice-in-Wonderland-like-Red-Queen, Speaker Pelosi, and her dictatorial and unconstitutional scheme to pass the Senate Health Care bill without voting on it. While we are uncertain that we will be fighting on this ground, it is essential to prepare the battlefield, if we do.

This amendment, I am reliably advised, was written by a former judge on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals who was on President Bush’s short list for the Supreme Court (Roberts beat him out) and is recently retired and is teaching Constitutional law at one of the most prestigious national law schools at University on the west coast.

So, in other words, don’t mess with the language of this amendment. Just launch it, now on whatever bill is now pending on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

START OF TEXT OF THE AMENDMENT:

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The natural reaction by most Americans to the unofficial and preliminary claim that the $2.5 Trillion ObamaCare bill is revenue-neutral is, well, B.S. (There is a card game with the same name.)

The second natural reaction is the realization that ObamaCare must cut the guts out of Medicare and raise taxes through the roof.

All of the above are reasonable and accurate reactions to the latest Speaker Pelosi counter-attack from Wonderland.

As you know, Utah is having its caucuses next week. People will be picked as delegates to go to the State Convention. At the convention, if Bennett cannot get 60% of the delegates to support him, he will either be defeated at the convention or be forced into a runoff.

Bennett’s campaign is encouraging its supporters to show up at the caucuses and lie as best they can to become delegates to the convention.

Right now there is a heavy anti-Bennett bias even within the official Utah Republican Party. Having Bennett’s supporters come in and claim to be wholly undecided or hostile to Bennett could help send his brigade to the convention to protect him.

Desperate men do desperate things.

We have the video of Senator Bennett’s son encouraging supporters to hide their allegiance to the senator to increase their chances of becoming a delegate. Watch it and decide for yourself.

I think the NRCC did a fantastic job with this. It would be proper to let them know.

Consider this an Open Thread.

Aaron B. Gardner

With regard to this despairing statement by David Brooks:

Deem and pass? Are you kidding me? Is this what the Revolutionary War was fought for? Is this what the boys on Normandy beach were trying to defend? Is this where we thought we would end up when Obama was speaking so beautifully in Iowa or promising to put away childish things?

…I do not say that Jen Rubin is sharpening her knife.

Maybe the rubes understand Obama fairly well, after all. They figured out quite some time ago that the entire campaign message — change, hope, post-partisanship, nonideological, fiscally sober — was a ruse. And they understand how immoderate both his methods and his aims are.

I personally am not out on a ledge. (But then I never bought the whole Obama campaign whoop-de-do.) Should this pass, I have infinite faith that the American people will deliver a mortal electoral blow to those politicians who thought they could shred anything to get their way. And then bit by bit — or in one fell swoop — the elected replacements for the shredders will rip out ObamaCare. So there’s no reason to be morose. Elections are great corrective exercises, and one is just around the corner.

That would imply that Jen would have been foolish enough to let the knife get dull in the first place.  She’s not the sort; and neither am I.  I still think that this bill will not pass - but at this point, we’ve got a fallback strategy in place, just in case.  And should quote-unquote ‘moderate’ Democrats really do decide to commit electoral suicide for the sake of their liberal leadership, I guess that we can accommodate them.

And relax about worrying about how we could possibly gut this next year.  The Democrats are doing us the favor of setting the procedural bar very, very, very low…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

From the diaries by Erick

Lefty pundits nationwide are currently dismissing GOP objections against the Democratic “deem and pass” health care strategy, on the ground that the GOP has itself used “deem and pass” for many years.  Robert Schlesinger, opinion editor at U.S. News and World Report, writes:

The GOP used self-executing rules [i.e. "deem and pass"] 35 times in 2005-2006 alone (the last time the Republicans ran the House). Back then Democrats sued to end the practice and the GOP defended it in court. Ornstein asks: “Is there no shame any more?” Well … no.

It’s true that the GOP has used “deem and pass” before.  Big deal.  I’ve used a gun before, but that doesn’t mean I fired it like the maniac from Fort Hood.  When the GOP used “deem and pass,” that was done legitimately.  In contrast, the imminent “Slaughter Solution” would use “deem and pass” in a completely unconstitutional manner.

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In the Colorado Caucuses earlier this week, Ken Buck beat Jane Norton. It was close. Very close. You might say they tied.

But that is still big news. Buck does not have a massive on the ground presence yet and Jane Norton is the former Lt. Governor of Colorado with already massive name identification, the backing of the Washington Republican crowd, and lots more money than Buck. It’s like the Crist v. Rubio situation, except I actually like Norton, think she’s more with us than against us, but believe very strongly that Ken Buck will be more with us and a stronger conservative less likely to get pushed into doing silly things by the leadership.

Ken is showing strong grassroots support in Colorado, but he needs our help. We need to help him get even better organized on the ground, but unlike some of our candidates, Ken Buck really does need our cash. If you can’t, give your prayers, time, or what you can. But we need to get him fully funded.

Beating the Colorado Lt. Governor in the Colorado Caucuses is a very positive sign. Now we need to help translate that into money for Ken to turn out the vote in the primary.

I know our dollars are all stretched thing. All of us. But if you can commit to just a little, all of us doing the same will really help.

Let’s get Ken Buck to Washington.

This time the Politico is reporting on Senator Inhofe’s attacks. Inhofe, occasionally rated as the most conservative senator in Washington, uses that label with pride to give cover to his huge porkfest.

As we’ve seen repeatedly, earmarks always lead to bigger government. Inhofe, betraying his “most conservative” label, just the other day sided with the Democrats on their jobs bill solely because it funneled gobs of money into Inhofe’s pet program — the highway trust fund.

Republican senators running to the Politico to anonymously attack Jim DeMint is as regular an earthly occurrence as the sun rising in the east. It is also part of their stages of grief as they realize their political capital is dwindling while DeMint’s is rising.

First they denied DeMint was relevant.

“The only one who cares about Jim DeMint’s opinion is Jim DeMint. He’s not burdened with having to win races,” said a senior Senate aide.

His endorsements don’t matter.

A GOP strategist, however, said the latest endorsement by DeMint “means absolutely nothing” in Texas and only serves to further the Democratic narrative that Republicans are at war for the future of their party.

Then the new attack became only crazy RedState readers know anything about Jim DeMint and the rest of the world doesn’t care for him.

“Oftentimes some forget that while Jim DeMint may have a small universe of followers who read RedState, the reality is that the vast majority of Americans, including in Florida, don’t have the slightest idea who Jim DeMint is.”

Now Jim DeMint is a selfish press hound who people should ignore.

But even as most in the party concede they lost their way during the Bush years, the mere mention of DeMint’s name in the Capitol is enough to get GOP eyes rolling. The common view, which no official will voice publicly, for fear of giving the South Carolinian a higher profile, is that DeMint is a caucus of one who relies upon old tricks to draw notice.

All from mostly anonymous aides. A good number have come from the NRSC. Meanwhile, DeMint-style candidates are surging across the nation.

Folks, we need to get Jim DeMint some real allies and friends in the Senate. We need to get him some comrades in arms who will not run off to the Politico to attack him.

We can change our side and we must if we want to change Americans’ opinion that the GOP is tired, out of ideas, and corrupt. We know we are better than the other side, but when our side cannot clean up its own house, we cannot sell ourselves successfully to the American people. We must and can do better. We need more Jim DeMint-style conservatives.

Jim Geraghty:

The headline in Haaretz is “Netanyahu’s brother-in-law: Obama is an anti-Semite” but the story actually quotes him as saying Obama is “anti-Israel.” I don’t think the terms are quite the same, although the middle portion of that venn diagram is pretty big.

R.S. McCain:

This is why the “peace process” can never lead to peace: The PLA, Fatah and Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades don’t want peace, they want dead Jews.

I would very much like not to have to jog the administration’s elbow on this issue, but they’re making a mistake both foreign and domestic with regard to our new Israeli policy.  The ‘foreign’ part is covered above: for ‘domestic,’ see Walter Russell Mead.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

RedState Morning Briefing
For March 18, 2010

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All one need do is Google this man’s name and they would see for themselves just how terrible Erickson is…how dangerous he is to America…and just how much his very existence spells DOOM ™ for life as we know it. Quick-hide your women, shield your progeny…Erickson means to eat their livers and swallow their souls.

So one would think, at least, were one so inclined to click through to some of those chicken little stories out there in the nether world of the internets. From Non-Conservatives, to Academics and Liberal Elitists, to self-soiling and unprincipled Professional Politicians and firmly-entrenched good ole boys inside the M(ostly) S(cumbags) M(edia), each of these clowns has a tale of doom about the hell we’re headed for compliments of CNN’s hand basket. Problem is, as with every OTHER decent human being out there trying to do what he thinks is right for himself, his family, and his country, Erickson has pissed off people that disagree with his principles and can’t fathom that his success story grows and is in no small part sustained by his having stood unflinchingly by them.

What does the larger internet and political punditry community (unable to find success and relevance in its own right) decide to do when confronted with such a conundrum? Why, set out to unplug the microphone and drown out the voice…THAT’S what. I’m reminded, in these times, of a sellout of the US Military; an opportunist that made no small profit founding a website and swimming in the dollars of the angst of his minions - you remember Markos Moulitsas, don’t you? Tell me again how it is that Erickson is evil for starting in this business as an unpaid member, doing well enough at it to get hired on to RUN the place, and is now being asked to add his 2 cents worth on a freaking political News program? Oh, yeah, I forgot-it’s because he’s articulate, intelligent, experienced…isn’t an F-bomb flinging chimp for the party line…and Conservative. Did I mention he’s held elective Public office (Republican), too? All bad…ALL a threat to our way of life.

What was I thinking? [#facepalm]

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This is interesting. The Club For Growth sent out a press release that gives some on the ground scoop out of Utah not too flattering to Bob Bennett.

As you know, Utah is having its caucuses next week. People will be picked as delegates to go to the State Convention. At the convention, if Bennett cannot get 60% of the delegates to support him, he will either be defeated at the convention or be forced into a runoff.

According to the Club for Growth, Bennett’s campaign is allegedly encouraging its supporters to show up at the caucuses and lie as best they can to become delegates to the convention.

Right now there is a heavy anti-Bennett bias even within the official Utah Republican Party. Having Bennett’s supporters come in and claim to be wholly undecided or hostile to Bennett could help send his brigade to the convention to protect him.

Desperate men do desperate things.