From the diaries by Erick

Heritage Action for America and the Club for Growth are outstanding organizations.  If you look at scorecards, theirs represent the purest of some very impure cards.  HAFA and CFG should be commended for their efforts to hold politicians feet to the fire, but we need an added element.  We need to score unanimous consent requests.

The House, today, passed a massive spending bill.  The Senate will pass it tomorrow.  HAFA and CFG have announced they will be scoring in opposition.  They should.

Now, as you suspect, the true conservatives in the House lined up and voted against it.  The same will happen in the Senate tomorrow.  They are voting the way they should.  What’s the problem then?  Our conservative heroes are doing the right thing, right? Wrong!

Before both bodies vote, there are procedural moves which can be made by members to slow down a massive package like this and perhaps expose the bad deeds that are about to take place.  The American people have had little if any time to read the legislation and as Senator McCain pointed out today, no member of Congress has had an opportunity to read it.  (See, McCain Slams Omnibus Spending Bill).  Don’t expect for any of those procedural moves to be made.

In the Senate, they will need unanimous consent to move the package through the process.  Where are the conservative heroes going to be then?  The same place they’ve been in the past — hiding behind two very good score cards.  Instead of objecting and displaying courage and the willingness to fight the establishment when it matters, they will be smelling jet fumes and trying to get out of Washington to come home and tell us how hard they are fighting.  The truth is, they’re fighting, but not when it matters.

HAFA and CFG need to add another element to scorecards.  When they’re scoring a vote like the ominibus, which continues us down the path to bankruptcy, spending at a minimum $20 billion more than we spent last year, no member should get credit for fighting and voting “right,” unless they’ve used every procedural process possible to save America.  It is time for our conservative leaders to show us some courage, not just a scorecard.

From the diaries by Erick

It didn’t take long for former Senator Judd Gregg to use his influence to try to push the bidding of Wall Street at the expense of middle America.

Yesterday, Gregg wrote an Op Ed for The Hill where he thrashed the Balanced Budget Amendment “to dodge debt-ceiling action.”  Gregg tries to redefine conservatism.

One of the best ways to guarantee that there will not be a balanced budget or a fiscally responsible initiative is to condition action on a debt ceiling increase on passage of a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. This approach is favored by some conservatives who take the position that they will not vote to increase the debt ceiling unless such a constitutional amendment is passed. This is a road best not traveled if we want to come to some sort of real action on our nation’s impending fiscal crisis. “Lord save us from the well intentioned and those who are trying to score political points or raise money,” should be the response to this bit of “conservative” misdirection.

Gregg is wrong. 

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From the diaries by Erick

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same …

In voting for cloture (see roll call vote here) on the nomination of Jack McConnell on Wednesday, 11 Republican Senators violated the oath they took to defend the constitution.  It’s that simple.

Senators Alexander, Brown of Massachusetts, Chambliss, Collins, Graham, Isakson, Kirk, McCain, Murkowski, Snowe and Thune provided Democrats with the necessary votes to overcome a filibuster of McConnell to be a district court judge in Rhode Island.

How bad is Jack McConnell?  One only needs to look to the scathing Dear Colleague letter circulated by Senator Cornyn prior to the Senate conducting a cloture vote.  After pointing out that McConnell had been dishonest in his testimony to the Judiciary Committee, Senator Cornyn stated in part:

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Fronted by Erick.

Christine O’Donnell might not be the model candidate.  She has made more than her share or errors, but as the Senator from Delaware, she will not disappoint.  She will vote with Jim DeMint, will be the first pro-life female Senator who is not afraid to own it and will not spend our money like it’s her own.  I know she has fumbled a few times, but she did not fumble by denying the concept of separation of church and state.  It is not and cannot be found in the Constitution.

After Tuesday’s debate, leftist pundits, including Larry King, trounced on her because she questioned Coon’s statement about whether the First Amendment requires the separation of church and state.  The First Amendment requires a number of things that are ignored, separation of church and state is not one of them.  History simply does not support it.

One of the initial acts of the first congress was to print bibles.  The God that Larry King and I’m sure the other commentators on MSNBC think should not be talked about, but one that O’Donnell believes in, is represented in the bibles ordered to be printed by the Congress.  If the Congress printed bibles as an initial act, with government money, how were the two separated?

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The website is still available.  Let’s hope that’s not the case in 2014.  Lindsey Graham is on a mission – one that leaves Democrats cheering and Republicans baffled.

Late last year I reported on South Carolina’s Missing Senator.  We would be fortunate if he had never reappeared.   As Hogan reported recently, Graham made a cameo in the Senate Judiciary Committee to tell Republican Senators how stupid they were to be casting votes against Elena Kagan, President Obama’s nominees to the Supreme Court.  (Lindsey Graham Thinks You’re Stupid)

No one felt the impact of Senator Graham’s statement like Senator Grassley, who for the first time is not in a runaway re-election effort.  The Des Moines Register cited Graham’s support for Kagan in a partisan attack piece against Grassley, unsupported by any journalistic integrity.  (Grassley’s Pitiful Excuse for Voting No) The Register even refused to print editorials defending Senator Grassley’s position.

How stupid are the other six Republicans on the Committee?  Senator Jeff Sessions, the Ranking Member, cited a number of reasons for voting against Kagan, including the following:

1.    Throughout [her] testimony … Kagan repeatedly chose to provide the Committee with political spin rather than clearly and honestly admitting or describing events that were objectively capable of description.

2.    Ms. Kagan denied the reality that she had banned the military recruiters from Harvard … in order to punish them because of the ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy. .. Her testimony regarding this issue was at best inaccurate and, at worse, intellectually dishonest.

3.    Ms. Kagan’s testimony regarding her actions in the Witt case, in which the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law was challenged, was perhaps even more disturbing to me. Despite the clear record, she denied the reality that she abdicated her duty as Solicitor General by refusing to appeal the Witt decision.

Basically, Kagan lied to the Committee.

Senator Kyl noted that he was voting against Kagan for a number of reasons, including the following:

1.    Ignoring her own advice in a now famous University of Chicago Law Review article, she did not testify meaningfully before the Judiciary Committee.

2.    In explaining why I could not support now Justice Sotomayor, I said I thought she was disingenuous [to the] Committee.  Obviously, reaching such a conclusion precludes support, notwithstanding other qualifications for the position.  Reluctantly, I have reached the same conclusion regarding Elena Kagan.

3.    Exhibit A is her insistence on redefining her position on military recruiting on the Harvard campus. Her ‘separate but equal’ defense and attempt to downplay the steps she took to undermine the legal policy of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ were, ultimately, unbelievable. It is almost unfathomable, for example, that someone with Ms. Kagan’s considerable legal acumen could have, as she asserted, ‘always thought that we were acting in compliance’ with the Solomon Amendment.

4.    “Exhibit F is the explanation of several of her bench memos to Justice Marshall insisting that they were not her views, but only a ‘channeling’ of his. Ms. Kagan offered this explanation for a memo categorizing litigants as ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys,’ a memo stating that the government was ‘for once on the side of the angels,’ and a memo expressing fear that the Court might ‘create some very bad law on abortion and/or prisoners’ rights.’ In memo after memo, one gets the sense that Ms. Kagan was not simply ‘channeling’ her boss, but was instead expressing her own personal policy views on matters before the Court, and, that they had as much to do with who the litigants were as what the issues were.

Basically, Kagan lied to the Committee.

The other stupid Senators went on to provide concrete reasons for opposing a nominee who elevated herself above the law.  The brilliant Graham – he’s supporting Kagan, because President Obama won the election.  Like Kagan’s testimony, nothing could be further from the truth.  Graham is supporting Kagan because he loves courting democrats (ask Maria Cantwell) and stealing the spotlight.  He did the same thing with Sotomayor.  If he votes no, he doesn’t make the Sunday morning shows.

Every other Republican member of the Judiciary Committee shows up most Thursday mornings to process legislation and vote on controversial nominees, not Graham.  He is always missing and votes by proxy.  On Sotomayor and Kagan, he has been present and voting yes.  How stupid does Graham think we are?  Are we really to believe that the Constitution requires a yes vote for someone who abhors the constitution?  Even Senator Voinovich, who is no conservative, does not think so.  Here is what he said about Ms. Kagan:

The President deserves deference in his nominations, and of course Presidential elections have a direct impact on the makeup of our Judiciary; that is to say, elections have consequences.  But, Senate confirmations should not be a simple mechanical affirmation of the President’s selection, especially when the nominee will enjoy a lifetime appointment.  A Senator is duty bound to conscientiously review the qualifications of the President’s nominee and make an independent assessment of the nominee’s qualifications.

…

Because there is such a limited written record with General Kagan and because she has gone out of her way to not answer questions, I have no idea what she will do on the bench and whether she will be able to suppress her own values to apply the law.  The fact is we really do not know that much about her views.

…

Some of my colleagues would like to have had a less liberal person nominated by the President.  My position is that this President will surely nominate a liberal.  The most important question is “is that liberal nominee qualified to be a member of the Supreme Court?”  I would argue that General Kagan has been nominated based on her friendships and personal attachments with President Obama and others at the White House, not based on objective qualities that would indicate she is qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice.

We can only assume that Graham would say Voinovich is stupid as well.  Does Graham really think we’re buying this?  If it was really a matter or deference to the President, why did Graham vote to give Kagan a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court but oppose James Cole for a limited appointment as Assistant Attorney General in the same meeting?  Graham probably does not know he voted against Cole.  After voting for Kagan, he went missing again, and his staff voted against Cole by proxy.  The cameras at that point, were basically off, and he had no opportunity to steal the spotlight.

ReplaceLindseyGraham.com is still available.  Let’s hope it is not in 2014.  Trust me, when Graham goes missing, no one on the Republican side is going to lead the search mission.  He would be one missing person that no one would ever hope to find.

Elena Kagan, President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court is guilty of murder in the first degree.  Unfortunately, even though the evidence would demonstrate she is a cold blooded, calculated killer, outside of her position on abortion, she has never been charged.  Now, the evidence is coming to light.  Who did Kagan murder?  She murdered Ronald Reagan.

In November 1980, Reagan was on his way to the White House and Kagan was Chairman of the editorial page of The Daily Princetonian, Princeton’s student newspaper.  The day before the election, Kagan and her editorial page editors made clear what their position was in the race for President between Reagan and Carter.  They had one goal: “Keeping Reagan Out of the White House.”

This was necessary because of the following:

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Last Wednesday, a number of conservative leaders gathered at the Collingwood Library in Alexandria, not far away from Mount Vernon, the homestead of our founding father, to sign the Mount Vernon Statement.

There are normally two problems with statements like these: their content and the characters associated with them.

The Mount Vernon Statement has the content right.  The statement, instead of being watered down so that Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins would feel comfortable associating with it, reaffirms our nation’s commitment to fiscal responsibility, national security and socially conservative values.  Unfortunately, there were some unsavory characters present at the signing ceremony, including David Keene and Grover Norquist.  Malkin keyed in on their presence to denounce the statement.   (http://michellemalkin.com/2010/02/18/an-inconvenient-question-about-the-mount-vernon-statement/)  I am sure she drove a lot of traffic to her site in doing so.  For that I congratulate her.  For attacking the statement, I condemn her.

Malkin is right to highlight the point that if Keene and Norquist had a conscience, they would not have been present at the signing ceremony, because the content of the statement stands against everything they both believe.  Sure, at one point, Keene and Norquist were conservative leaders, but now they are unfortunately a part of the old Washington guard that has one interest in mind – lining their pocketbooks.  The self interest of Keene and Norquist does not reflect the interest those actually involved in drafting the statement, people like former Attorney General Ed Meese and Heritage’s Ed Feulner.  Are Meese and Feulner, who are far from corrupt, guilty because Keene and Norquist signed the same document as them?  I think not.

Malkin in denouncing statement, because Keene and Norquist never met a conservative spotlight they would not try to steal or share if possible, creates a new form of guilt by association.  The statement is guilty because corrupt individuals decided to associate themselves with it.  I reject this standard and Malkin should know better.  If she is smart enough to write about how Keene and Norquist are for sale to the highest bidder, she should be smart enough not to create this new standard and tarnish the Mount Vernon Statement.

Unsatisfied with simply taking down the Statement along with Keene and Norquist, Malkin criticized Senator DeMint for endorsing the statement and encouraging his colleagues and others to sign it.  That was over the top and out of line.  Senator DeMint is famous for putting points on the board.  Michelle Malkin is famous for driving traffic to her blogs.  Given the two choices, I will join Senator DeMint in signing the document.

“Forget about the numbers.  Talk about the issues.” That’s the message that should be delivered to Senate Republicans on judges.  Next week when the Senate convenes, Senator Leahy will parade out a new set of numbers about how Republicans are blocking the judicial nominees of President Obama.  The Republicans will counter with a figure demonstrating that President Obama’s nominees, in fact, have been process faster than those of President Bush.  At the end of the day, no one cares.  Republicans should forget about the numbers and talk about the issues.  The issues are what people care about.

For instance, the Democrats stalled a number of President Bush’s nominees, including the following:

Miguel Estrada: They told him conservative Hispanics need not apply.

Priscilla Owen: Anyone who does not support a 14 year old having an abortion without parental notification should not apply.

Bill Pryor: Any Catholic who agrees with the Pope that abortion is wrong, should not apply.

Janice Rogers Brown: African American females are not allowed to be conservative.  They are certainly not allowed to believe that the social security system is bankrupt.

So far, the Republicans have delayed or voted in substantial numbers against the following nominees of President Obama:

David Hamilton: You are forbidden from praying to Jesus Christ, but encouraged to pray to Allah.

Andre Davis: Is so soft on crime that he threw out the confession of a man who shot himself and then called the police for help.

Louis Butler: The people of Wisconsin have rejected him twice as a judge, because they do not like his judicial philosophy.

Edward Chen: “Judges have to make determinations that draw not so much upon legal acumen, but on an understanding of people and of human experiences.”  To hell with the law is the only way to paraphrase this statement.

The American people do not need to hear that after 100 days Louis Butler or Edward Chen were confirmed.  They need to hear that Butler and Chen will never be confirmed.  They need to know the judicial philosophy of these people, not how many days they have been pending.  Let Patrick Leahy play the numbers game if he chooses, but make him defend supporting someone who believes that praying to Allah is fine, but not Jesus Christ.  No Democrat was willing to say they opposed Priscilla Owen because she believes if a minor could not get an aspirin in school without consent, she should not an abortion without notification.

Pretty soon, the numbers will catch up on Republicans, as they always do on both parties, and then they will have to lose their fear of talking about the issues.  Let’s hope it is not too late to beat the radical nominees Obama is planning to send forward.  It’s not about the numbers.  It’s about the issues.

My parents raised me to be nonviolent, but today, I’m promoting violence against women — a specific group of women — those involved with NOW or National Organization of Women.

The Tim Tebow/Focus on the Family commercial has run its course.  For all the build-up, the commercial was a letdown, but the pro-choice crowd is not willing to let it die, like they promote letting 115,000 children die every day through abortions.  Their latest attack is to say that it was inappropriate for Tebow to “playfully” tackle his mom in the ad.

NOW President Terry O’Neill claimed the ad promoted violence against women. “I am blown away at the celebration of the violence against women in it,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “That’s what comes across to me even more strongly than the anti-abortion message. I myself am a survivor of domestic violence, and I don’t find it charming.  I think CBS should be ashamed of itself.”

I have not been a victim of domestic violence, but I know a victim when I see one and Terry O’Neill does not represent that crowd.  After the tackle, Tebow’s mom is all smiles.  I’ve never seen a victim of domestic violence smile immediately after being abused.  Indeed, the only time they normally smile, after the abuse, is when the judge hands down a harsh sentence and sends the abuser to prison.  Instead of helping the case against violence, O’Neill degrades it with her comments.  I think we have reached a point where no one should take the NOW organization seriously.

Before the ad ran, O’Neill, without seeing it, called it “extraordinarily offensive and demeaning.” Regardless of whether you’re pro-life or pro-choice, nothing about the ad is offensive or demeaning.  What is extraordinarily offensive is O’Neill’s ploy to promote baby killings at all cost.  And what is extraordinarily demeaning is her ability to degrade those who have truly been victims of domestic violence and inability to understand there is nothing playful about it.

Any one affiliated with NOW, at this point, should truly understand that NOW only believes in one choice – killing the innocent.  O’Neill has proven that with her attempt to change the focus of the Tebow ad.  Again, I’m a supporter of the non-violent movement, but at this point, I’m not opposed to beating some common sense, if at all possible, into any one affiliated with NOW.

After Tuesday’s referendum against national health care, Republicans should have been celebrating and most of them were, but then something happened that should not have.  Instead of taking a victory lap, one of the first things out of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s mouth was that he is prepared to work with democrats on their legislative agenda and “meet them in the middle.”  Now you understand why the title is so harsh.  McConnell can meet the democrats in the middle and he can also meet my middle finger.

The democrats have shown us their hand.  Their legislative agenda includes, cap & trade, health care, increasing the debt limit, legalizing gay marriage, comprehensive immigration, card check and welcoming terrorists.  That’s a middle ground that even Scott Brown, who is no Tea Party conservative, refused to go to.  Instead, he said one thing to the Obama agenda: NO.  In response, even the people of Massachusetts rejected hope and change.

It is time for new leadership in the Republican Party.  It is time for someone who will at least take a victory lap before snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.  We can meet Scott Brown on the Senate floor and shake his hand when he votes against health care.  For the Minority Leader, how many people are willing to join me and tell him you can meet the middle finger?