1. Perry & Bachmann in Iowa

2. National Review: “they lived long enough for us to see them become the villain.”

3. Work for Obama, Get a Federal Contract, and Watch Left-Wing Pseudo-Journalists Roll Over and Purr

4. Replacement worker beaten & hospitalized, Ohio police see no connection to labor dispute

5. Corrupt Dem legislator makes racist attack on Susana Martinez

1. Perry & Bachmann in Iowa

They had to do well in Iowa and they did. Mitt Romney had a better debate performance than this past Saturday. The software upgrade must have worked. Newt Gingrich held his own.

But Michele Bachmann got to Newt. She got the better of him on the issue of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and he treated her so dismissively on the issue of abortion I expect it to really hurt him more with women.

Rick Perry has shown tremendous improvement. He got few questions, but each question he got he took the opportunity to hit a home run. His campaign has to be pleased. There is real momentum on the ground for Rick Perry. His polling has trended up and the buzz in Iowa has been growing more and more positive to him. In this, the last debate before Iowa goes to vote, Perry did everything he needed to do to be a real contender. His answers on the 10th Amendment and attacks on Obama and his call for a part time Congress resonated.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

2. National Review: “they lived long enough for us to see them become the villain.”

One of our co-founders, Ben Domenech, produces one of the best daily reads in my inbox. It’s the Transom. If you do not subscribe, you should. And if you do subscribe, today you got Ben’s thoughts on the two big conservative endorsements for Mitt Romney.

I think he hits the nail on the head and it is very much worth sharing.

“The editorial is an honest expression of what National Review really believes and has for some time, and is one more yelp from the once-proud flagship publication of the right. Unfortunately, NR remains as tone deaf as it was during George W. Bush’s second term, when they drifted and meandered along uncertainly. Here, their sloppiness and extreme tone play to the advantages of their targets. Had they been a bit more humble, limiting the scope of this editorial to Gingrich’s flaws and holding back on the Romney affection, they might not have just handed a lovely hammer to every dismissed candidate. But that sort of perception isn’t anywhere to be found in those pages. I would not be surprised even to see Gingrich cite it approvingly as proof that he’s no insider, which is its own kind of disappointing hilarity. . . .

“It’s a real shame, when you think what might have been over the past few years, had NR recognized the rising movement outside their traditional base which aimed to change the party and the nation – if it could have seized an opportunity to become the voice of a renewed conservatism. That hypothetical publication would’ve had the heft gained not through the bellowed orders of a far-off would-be commander but the power gained through trust, through recognition that they are honest brokers and courageous advocates for the cause of human liberty. Instead, as the saying goes, they lived long enough for us to see them become the villain.”

Please click here for the rest of the post.

3. Work for Obama, Get a Federal Contract, and Watch Left-Wing Pseudo-Journalists Roll Over and Purr

Solyndra, Lightsquared, and now Solayzme are all companies that are closely connected to the Obama campaign and all got government money. While the Obama Administration has been attacking Republicans as “crony capitalists” and using an army of left-wing pseudo-journalists to make the attacks, the Obama Administration has been rewarding campaign friends with government contracts.

In Barack Obama’s America, he, not the marketplace, picks the winners and losers. But just how far into the government and into the Obama campaign does this crony capitalism go?

Please click here for the rest of the post.

4. Replacement worker beaten & hospitalized, Ohio police see no connection to labor dispute

There is a labor dispute going on at a Cooper Tire plant in Findlay, Ohio. In late November, when the United Steelworkers rejected a contract offer from management, the company locked out approximately 1,000 unionized workers.

On Saturday, one of the replacement workers was beaten with something “similar to a baseball bat” and hospitalized.

Please click here for the rest of the post.

5. Corrupt Dem legislator makes racist attack on Susana Martinez

There’s an interesting scandal right now in New Mexico right now. You see, the New Mexico constitution tries to stop corruption, a real problem in the state as the Economist recently noted, by requiring that state legislators cannot draw a salary from other sources during the legislative session. But Channel KRQE has reported that there is a set of legislators who do not abide by this constitutional requirement: teachers, and in particular teachers union members. One of the state legislators has come under particular scrutiny, Rep. Cheryl Williams Stapleton, a Democrat from Albuquerque.

Please click here for the rest of the post.