1. The Rise of the Third Party

2. Why Is John Boehner Letting House Republicans Be Mitch McConnell’s Toy?

3. The McConnell “deal” sells out conservative principles

4. Why McConnell’s Plan Is Bad for America

5. AFSCME: The Big Green Dog Behind Big Government & Higher Taxes

6. Politifact’s Review of Josh Trevino: Mostly Hackery

7. Dr. Steven Chu and ‘Common Sense’

1. The Rise of the Third Party

I have long criticized the calls of many disaffected conservatives for a third party and I maintain that position. The closest I have come to calling for a third party is to encourage tea party activists to take over the GOP from within.External third parties are not, in my mind, a solution to anything, but a great enabler of Democrats.Notwithstanding my opinion, I believe the GOP, should it adopt Mitch McConnell’s Pontius Pilate Act, will be sowing the seeds of its own destruction.Please click here for the rest of the post.

2. Why Is John Boehner Letting House Republicans Be Mitch McConnell’s Toy?

Here is what is going to happen unless House Republicans stage an immediate revolt against their own House leadership.Mitch McConnell, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi are going to win. They have managed to cut the legs out from under John Boehner and the House Republicans. In fact, the House Republicans have taken on all the appearances of Mitch McConnell’s basement gimp.I’m not sure why we need them any more if the McConnell-Reid-Pelosi Pontius Pilate Act passes.See, John Boehner ceded authority to Mitch McConnell. Instead of embracing the conservative “Cut, Cap, and Balance” plan or even pushing forward with Paul Ryan’s plan as an alternative, Boehner let McConnell move forward and cut Boehner’s legs out from under him. It was a willing sacrifice on Boehner’s part because he’d rather be legless than fight.Now here is what Boehner and McConnell have agreed to do.At the start of next week, House Republicans will vote on their cut, cap, and balance plan.Because of leadership undermining it behind the scenes, it will be lucky to get 218 votes. And if it gets 218 votes, it will get to the Senate and Mitch McConnell will declare his support for it while letting Harry Reid deny it a vote. Of, better yet, they’ll vote for it. It won’t get 51 votes.And then Mitch McConnell and John Boehner will say as they are already starting to say in the press, “Well, we just couldn’t get it through. Time to go with the Pontius Pilate Act.” There will be no fight. There will be no holding the line. The votes will come fast to avoid getting any last minute momentum. It will all be so Congressional Republican Leaders will say, “Well, they failed. Let’s move on.” Never mind that moving on instead of holding the line is what got us into this mess to begin with.We’ll get another deficit commission in the deal. And then we’ll cede congressional power to the President to raise the debt ceiling so Republicans don’t get blamed.It is now a foregone conclusion.Please click here for the rest of the post.

3. The McConnell “deal” sells out conservative principles

I don’t want to repeat a lot of the great points that Erick has made already about the McConnell “contingency deal.” The proposal is a dereliction of duty and everything that we all hate about Washington. It punts responsibility at exactly the point when Republicans want Americans to give them more. The Club for Growth has announced that we oppose the McConnell-Reid-Pelosi deal and we’ll be Key Voting against it for multiple reasons.This is a critical moment in the debate over the debt ceiling. I can tell you now that any Republican who votes to give President Obama MORE power, allowing him to RAISE the debt ceiling WITHOUT guaranteed spending cuts and a Balanced Budget Amendment …well, I can tell you that voting to do so is selling out. It means you put politics before principle. It means you put elections before doing what’s right. It means you care more about protecting your job than saving America.Senator McConnell and the rest of the Republicans in the Senate and in the House need to hear it from the Tea Party movement. They need to hear it from the grassroots. Erick has written on here many times for Republicans to “hold the freaking line.” I couldn’t agree more.Please click here for the rest of the post.

4. Why McConnell’s Plan Is Bad for America

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s politically motivated plan to raise the debt limit “does nothing for the good of the country,” according to The Heritage Foundation’s David S. Addington, who outlined the think tank’s concerns on The Foundry this afternoon.“The McConnell Plan would put America deeper into debt and achieves nothing toward the vitally important objective of getting federal overspending and overborrowing under control,” wrote Addington, who served as chief of staff and counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney before joining Heritage.Please click here for the rest of the post.

5. AFSCME: The Big Green Dog Behind Big Government & Higher Taxes

Across the nation, states, counties, and municipalities are facing a fiscal calamity. Even before the 2008 economic meltdown, many states were facing a sea of red ink due to over-promising, poor fiscal planning, and too much political influence from government union bosses. Now, as politicians of both parties grapple with the mess created by years of passing the buck, they are faced with taxpayers revolting on the right, businesses fleeing union-dominated states and radicalized government unions on the left.Please click here for the rest of the post.

6. Politifact’s Review of Josh Trevino: Mostly Hackery

RedState Co-Founder appeared on MSNBC last night discussing, inter alia, the debt ceiling, and liberals are in a tizzy. Some of them apparently contacted the liberal hack artists at Politifact (who have still got about 5 people on earth convinced that they are a neutral fact checker) to take a run at Josh’s claims about polling on the deficit. The clip of Josh’s performance is here.By way of reminder, Politifact’s long history of liberal hackery has been discussed ad nauseam, including this absurd piece in which liberal gasbag Gary Trudeau was declared correct despite equating terrorism with homicides, legal shootings, and accidents, not to mention this ridiculous hit job on Rob Portman, among many other clearly politically motivated “fact checks.”Please click here for the rest of the post.

7. Dr. Steven Chu and ‘Common Sense’

Energy Secretary and Nobel Laureate Dr. Steven Chu defends the banning of conventional incandescent light bulbs as a ‘common-sense’ measure that is certainly a ‘win-win’ for consumers. (Caution: Clicking HuffPo links may cause a loss of IQ points.)Please click here for the rest of the post.