Senator John Thune took to the Senate floor yesterday to criticize his fellow 2012 presidential contenders for playing politics with the Obama-Kyl tax deal.

“It is easy to stand on the sidelines and criticize this deal,” Thune said. “And it would perhaps be politically expedient to stand on the sideline and criticize this tax deal. But to advocate against this tax deal is to advocate for a tax increase.”

It certainly is not.

None of the conservatives opposed to Obama-Kyl, including myself, want tax rates to go up on January 1. However, we are simply unwilling to accept the party line that the best deal we could get includes a mammoth 13 month extension of unpaid unemployment benefits (thus caving after a year-long fight on the principle of paying for such extensions), an extension of current tax rates that conveniently ignores the resurrection of the death tax, and a package of tax extenders that includes all sorts of giveaways for big business.

One of those giveaways is the renewal of the tax and tariff subsidies for ethanol that Senator Thune is so beholden too. At the end of November, Thune joined over a dozen other Senators in requesting that these extensions be made a priority in any legislative end-game, and inevitably these subsidies made it into the Obama-Kyl package that Thune is now heartily supporting. (Who is playing politics here, Senator?)

But Thune isn’t the only one casting aspersions on the motives of those opposing Obama-Kyl.

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Senator John Thune took to the Senate floor yesterday to criticize his fellow 2012 presidential contenders for playing politics with the Obama-Kyl tax deal.

“It is easy to stand on the sidelines and criticize this deal,” Thune said. “And it would perhaps be politically expedient to stand on the sideline and criticize this tax deal. But to advocate against this tax deal is to advocate for a tax increase.”

It certainly is not.

None of the conservatives opposed to Obama-Kyl, including myself, want tax rates to go up on January 1. However, we are simply unwilling to accept the party line that the best deal we could get includes a mammoth 13 month extension of unpaid unemployment benefits (thus caving after a year-long fight on the principle of paying for such extensions), an extension of current tax rates that conveniently ignores the resurrection of the death tax, and a package of tax extenders that includes all sorts of giveaways for big business.

One of those giveaways is the renewal of the tax and tariff subsidies for ethanol that Senator Thune is so beholden too. At the end of November, Thune joined over a dozen other Senators in requesting that these extensions be made a priority in any legislative end-game, and inevitably these subsidies made it into the Obama-Kyl package that Thune is now heartily supporting. (Who is playing politics here, Senator?)

But Thune isn’t the only one casting aspersions on the motives of those opposing Obama-Kyl.

Read More →

Sam Brownback cannot be taken seriously while ex-banker Lynn Mitchelson remains a campaign co-chair.

Some questions for future Kansas Governor Sam Brownback:

1. Why did you choose a provably corrupt public official to be a campaign co-chair?
2. Why is part of your campaign team giving a no-bid legal contract to the Democratic Party Chairman’s law firm, at the largest Kansas college, and when the college’s lawyer has clear ethical problems?
3. Are you trying to make Sarah Palin’s PAC look like a well-run organization?
4. Should we assume that you have given up hopes of becoming a future US President?
5. Is this how you plan on running the State of Kansas — through reckless acts of incompetence, corruption, and cover-ups, then followed by failed attempts to intimidate your critics (and even top news agencies)?  That’s what your choice of campaign co-chairs tells us.
6. Do you realize that for every one liberal “Republican” to whom your campaign is reaching out, you are losing — perhaps permanently — the support of two or three conservative voters?
7. Really, Senator? Really?

RedState readers, I can explain to you the national banking crisis, in three words:  Meet Lynn Mitchelson.

For 15 years, the ex-banker Lynn Mitchelson has been one of seven at-large elected trustees at Johnson County Community College.  In large part because he is now unelectable, Mitchelson will permanently retire from public office in 2011.

Mitchelson once had a reputation in Kansas City as someone who could “fix banks.”  Troubled banks would hire him as a temporary CEO, and, in theory, he would bring them back to health.   But now that his record in elected office is widely known, I’ll be surprised if he is ever again hired by a bank.  Why?  Because he is directly responsible for much of lawlessness, failed cover-ups, and retaliation that has become commonplace at JCCC.  The only thing more embarrassing than the corruption in which Mitchelson has participated, is that he has been so unsuccessful at carrying it out.  I did not properly understand the phrase “the cover-up is worse than the crime,” until I had witnessed first-hand Mitchelson at work.  Time and time again, Mitchelson’s actions have brought national embarrassment to this college, the largest college in Kansas.

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Omigod!!! Gee, why hasn’t anyone thought of that before?!? I mean other than all those times the Bush administration wanted to reform these money toilets? All I can say is, “DUH!!!”

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) wants a single agency to replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to handle the flushing of the financial system further into the crapper. Of course, this isn’t reform. What Frank wants is to replace two entities that are too big to fail with an even bigger one that is much too big to fail.

I’ve got two words for Frank’s suggestion. Epic. Fail.

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