Just to refresh everyone’s memory:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. – 1st Amendment

This is how the MSM is spinning a bit of the Coons/O’Donnell debate:

Republican Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell of Delaware on Tuesday questioned whether the U.S. Constitution calls for a separation of church and state, appearing to disagree or not know that the First Amendment bars the government from establishing religion…

The only way to write more dishonestly about what O’Donnell said would be to write, “and then O’Donnell flapped around quacking like a duck”. The report bears almost no relation to the actual event. Here is a link to video taken of the event – its about 8 minutes long, the statements on Church and State are at 2:48 and 6:09; what O’Donnell asks is whether or not the 1st Amendment has “separation of Church and State” in it. As the above quote shows, it does not – we do not separate Church and State, we prohibit the government from establishing a Church, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. That is a very important difference.

It is shown in the surrounding issues explored in this debate – with Coons asserting that the federal government must prohibit school districts from teaching anything other than strict, Darwinian evolutionism because anything else is religious and therefor “banned” by the Constitution’s alleged separation of Church and State. Coons is wrong – but he’s also, in this, just a typical liberal. Liberals want very much to have religion reduced to an entirely private affair – out of the public square, entirely.

That the MSM is playing this up shows that they, too, have a complete lack of knowledge of basic, Constitutional principles…the same lack of understanding which makes them convinced that some how, some way, a right to an abortion is guaranteed by the Constitution (this is also something Coons advances as further “proof” that O’Donnell doesn’t understand the Constitution). What this boils down to is the real debate – what we are arguing about: will we have a nation which obeys the actual Constitution, or a nation which obeys whatever fads liberals choose to assert are in the Constitution?

Make no mistake about it, returning to a Constitutional order in the United States won’t be merely cutting taxes and spending. In this, the more libertarian members of the TEA Party movement err in their own right. Returning to the Constitution means obeying it in its entirety – a whole host of laws, court decisions and regulatory fiats will have to be set aside, not least of which are in the area of “social issues”.

We are at the cross roads – will we return to liberty in its entirety, or just make a half-hearts, purely economic effort which will be doomed because our liberals will keep pressing their view unless we destroy it completely? Freedom is a difficult and uncomfortable thing to deal with – it really means allowing people to do as they wish in the crucial matters. If a school district wants to teach a “young earth” theory of creation, the only people who should have a say in it are the people of that local school district…no one outside that area should interfere.

What will we have, fellow Americans? Liberty, or tyranny? The choice is ours – and those who choose liberty, simply have to back O’Donnell over Coons even if one thinks that O’Donnell has some personal ideas which are distasteful…whatever her ideas are, she won’t impose them on anyone without their express consent…while Coons will blithely impose whatever he thinks best, regardless of what anyone wants.

Make your choice.

UPDATE: Gateway Pundit chimes in – O’Donnell got it right.

UPDATE II: Just to let everyone know, by playing it this way, the MSM just opened themselves a big, old can of Catholic/Christian whoop-a**. We really are much better up on this stuff than they suspect…

UPDATE III: NRO’s Battle 10 interviews O’Donnell on this issue.

And we’re not even half way through it, yet – from CBS News:

New numbers posted today on the Treasury Department website show the National Debt has increased by more than $3 trillion since President Obama took office.

The National Debt stood at $10.626 trillion the day Mr. Obama was inaugurated. The Bureau of Public Debt reported today that the National Debt had hit an all time high of $13.665 trillion…

The shameful thing for us Republicans is that during the Bush years, the debt rose nearly $5 trillion – but that took 8 years to happen. Obama is 60% of Bush’s debt in less than one fourth the amount of time! This is a criminal misuse of American wealth – and it must be stopped.

If you were feeling a little slack as the campaign enters its terminal phase; if you’re thinking “hey we’re going to win, so why sweat anymore?”, then stop it. We have to work to defeat as many Democrats as possible. We need to do this to give us the ability to stymie Obama’s profligate spending and bring back fiscal sanity. The future of our nation depends on it.

Geesh:

Three van loads of Hughes High students were taken last week – during school hours – to vote and given sample ballots only for Democratic candidates and then taken for ice cream, a Monday lawsuit alleges.

The complaint was made by Thomas Brinkman Jr., a Republican candidate for Hamilton County auditor, and the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending & Taxes against Cincinnati Public Schools.

“They plan to bring four more high schools (to vote) this week,” Christopher Finney, COAST attorney, said Monday after filing the suit.

It seeks a temporary restraining order to prevent school officials from participating or helping students participate in partisan politics during school hours or with school property or employees involved…

I guess we can consider this an improvement – at least they aren’t getting homeless people to vote by giving them cigarettes. Yet, that is.

They will lie, cheat and steal to win – it is what Democrats do; As I’ve said, if we do win the House, we should launch investigations in to each race decided by less than 1% of the vote. If we do this – if we have the raw courage necessary to do it – we will find, I’ll be bound, that a majority of the Democrat winners won via fraud. It is just what they do – they’ve gotten away with it for so long that they don’t even consider not doing it.

Lots of work to do come January, and while the economy and the war do take precedence, we can’t let the corruption slide – we have to go at it relentlessly.

A liberal tells us that the TEA Party will fail because the people of the TEA Party don’t really want the TEA Party to succeed:

These inconsistencies will likely prove to be of no consequence in this year’s emotionally driven midterms. However, this does not change the fact that should the politicians sent to Washington by the angry masses actually make good on their promises to shrink government, they would only succeed in making the masses even angrier than they already are. This can’t be good for re-election prospects.

Promising small government is one thing – actually taking away or materially reducing Social Security benefits is quite a different matter. Preaching the repeal of health care reform works nicely with an emotional voter – substantially cutting their Medicare benefits would be a pretty cold slap in the face to that very same voter.

And yet, nobody can make a serious dent in the federal budget without taking a big whack out of both entitlement programs. It simply cannot be done…

First off, this totally ignores the fact that the people rising to the top of the TEA Party movement are not getting in to politics to have a decades-long political career. They won’t mind if they were turned out next time around because they actually did what they said they would. It is understand by all those in the movement that hard choices are going to have to be made, and that these choices might anger a great many people.

Secondly, we can massively cut the size of government without taking a penny off the end-use of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. A liberal thinks that if you want to deliver a check to a retiree, you must have the massive, bloated government bureaucracy to do it – we on the right know otherwise. Even in Social Security, believe it or not liberals, there is massive waste, fraud and abuse…plus just the plain, old inefficiency which goes with any organization with too many employees.

Additionally, we can cut a huge swath through non-entitlement spending, freeing up additional funds to ensure granny gets her check while still making the government smaller each year, and eventually a completely balanced budget where our national debt shrinks year by year. We can probably eliminate or consolidate all of the following without anyone really noticing they are gone:

Administration for Native Americans; Administration on Aging; Administrative Committee on the Federal Registrar; Advisory Council on Historic Preservation; African Development Foundation; Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry; Agricultural Marketing Service; Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau; AMTRAK; Appalachian Regional Commission; Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance; Bonneville Power Administration; Bureau of International Labor Affairs; Bureau of Transportation Statistics; Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion; Chief Acquisition Officers Council; Chief Human Capital Officers Council; Chief Information Officers Council; Citizen’s Stamp Advisory Committee; Commission of Fine Arts; Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe; Committee for Purchase from People Who are Blind or Severely Disabled; Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements; Community Planning and Development; Coordinating Council on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; Corporation for National and Community Service; Council of Economic Advisers; Denali Commission; Disability Employment Policy Office; Domestic Policy Council; Economic Development Administration; Economic Research Service; Economics and Statistics Administration; Endangered Species Committee; Energy Information Administration; Office of Elementary and Secondary Education; Federal Communications Commission; Federal Consulting Group; Federal Executive Boards; Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight; Federal Interagency Committee for the Management of Noxious and Exotic Weeds; Federal Interagency Committee on Education; Federal Interagency Council on Statistical Policy; Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service; Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration; Federal Trade Commission; Federal Transit Administration; Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission; National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform; Foreign Agricultural Service; Global Affairs; House Leadership Offices; Innovation and Improvement Office; Institute of Education Sciences; Institute of Peace; Interagency Alternative Dispute Resolution Working Group; Interagency Council on Homelessness; Japan-United States Friendship Commission; John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; Joint Board for the Enrollment of Actuaries; Lead Hazard Control; Legal Services Corporation; Marine Mammal Commission; Migratory Bird Conservation Commission; Millennium Challenge Corporation; Morris K. Udall Foundation; Multifamily Housing Office; National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare; Open World Leadership Center; Office of Post Secondary Education; Railroad Retirement Board; Regulatory Information Service Center; Tennessee Valley Authority…and that doesn’t even get to the Departments of Education, Energy, Labor and Commerce, of which I defy anyone to think of anything off the top of their heads they actually do to benefit the people.

The fact of the matter is that we’re bankrupt – we simply can’t spend as much as we did, and so we must cut. Liberal dreams that we’ll all fall in line when it comes to actually cutting is a pipe dream…and it had better be, because if we on the right don’t show the courage to act, then our nation is doomed. And then where will our liberals look for massive government spending? China?

The left still does not understand how serious we are. They think this is just a phase and it will all quiet down and return them to power undisturbed. Well, sorry to break it to you, liberals, but this is a revolution…we will fix the mess you’ve made, whether you like it or not, and whether or not it temporarily costs us at the polls.

Very clever – and it does show how out of touch they are:

Side Note: Show of hands – how many people thought that we’d be paying attention to Massachusetts House races in mid-October?

If you’d like to help Markey’s opponent send him back home to find out what’s going on in the neighborhood, go here.

Latest Democrat meme – Epic Fail:

Democratic leaders in the House and Senate alleging GOP groups have funneled foreign money into campaign ads have seen their party raise more than $1 million from political action committees affiliated with foreign companies.

House and Senate Democrats have received about $1.02 million this cycle from such PACs, according to an analysis compiled for The Hill by the Center for Responsive Politics. House and Senate GOP leaders have taken almost $510,000 from PACs on the same list…

It doesn’t really matter, I guess: the Democrats aren’t interested in truth, they are only interested in winning. My thinking is that the Democrats wanted some way to defuse the TEA Party and as the Democrat meme is is that the TEA Party is made up of bitter, racist, Bible- and gun-clingers who would be, naturally, xenophobic, it is a natural that they’d start complaining about “foreign money”. And don’t think it was a “gee, you mean we take foreign money, too?” event – its “of course we take foreign money, but is there any way we can bamboozle people in to voting for us, or at least not showing up for the GOP?”.

Dishonesty is endemic on the Democrat side – Matt and I detailed this in Caucus of Corruption. They simply don’t know any other way to operate – and the fact that they won in 2006 and 2008 by relentlessly lying about the GOP proves, as far as they are concerned, that dishonesty is the best policy. They forgot that people honestly believed them – and now that they are breaking trust, people are getting furious…the “enthusiasm gap” is, I’ll bet, entirely moderate Democrats and Democrat-leaning Independents angry and disillusioned over the way they were conned.

This is not the end of it – they’ll keep this up all through to November 2nd, and I doubt that even their defeat will change their tune. We can expect the relentlessly dishonest, Chicago-way Obama Administration to lie its way right through 2012.

We can turn this against them, however…if we win, then we should investigate every close race in 2010…any candidate who won by less than 1% of the vote. Of the Democrats who won, I’ll bet most will have been found to win by fraud…its just too intensely built in to Democrat politics. As we’ll investigate GOPers, too, it will be fair…but as we don’t cheat, we’re in the clear (and if we do find a GOPer who won by cheating, we roast him alive, as it were). We will find the fraud – I’ll bet anyone $1 against their $10 that if we did such an investigation, we’d find cheating. This would be a grand opportunity not just to burn Democrats (always a fun exercise), but also start us on the path to clean government.

Its certainly worth trying – if we’ve the guts to do it.

Those endorsements of liberals are starting to cause some pain – from Blackfive:

I have reviewed the Political Action Committee (PAC) Board of Directors’ response to our request to rescind this year’ s Congressional endorsements. I disagree with their assessment.

It is now evident to most of the VFW leadership, both National and especially the departments, that the VFW has been subjected to extreme negative publicity throughout the nation, and the recent endorsement decisions have, in fact, harmed the VFW’ s reputation and future ability to fulfill our mission.

I cannot let this erosion of public support for our great organization continue. The apparent lack of the committee to address these concerns will lead to a proposal by me, as Commander-in-Chief, to amend the by-laws at the 112th National Convention for the purpose of dissolving the PAC. Meanwhile, under the authority granted to me as

Commander-in-Chief in section 619 of the VFW National By-Laws and under section 620 of the Manual of Procedure, I am withdrawing all PAC appointments effective October 15, 2010.

Accordingly, I’ m asking the council for a vote of “ no confidence” in the VFW PAC as indicated on the enclosed ballot.

To: National Council of Administration

From: Richard L. Eubank, Commander-in-Chief

Date: October 14, 2010

I am glad to find that the leadership of the VFW is acting to promptly and decisively to deal with the issue of the VFW endorsing candidates who don’t represent the values of the rank-and-file membership of the VFW. I was astounded to hear that Harry Reid had got the VFW’s endorsement, disgusted when I found out about the endorsement of Nancy Pelosi. Now it appears that the VFW PAC was off the ranch, and that explains it all.

Criminal case against Kansas Planned Parenthood allowed to proceed. A good thing, too – they are nothing more than a criminal conspiracy against life, and its high time they started to feel the heat.

If you won your Senate seat by 54 points in 2004 and are only up 13 points in 2010, then even if you, personally, don’t face defeat, your party does.

Stoner thanks police for finding his bong. Now he’s all set to vote Democrat on November 2nd. Unless he spaces it…

California firefighters cannot be forced to march in gay pride parade. Rather surprising that we’d get a just decision these days out of our courts…

TEA Party victory: Democrat Senate candidate refuses to bash TEA Party. Ok, now that we’re going mainstream, we have to be wary of getting captured by the system.

Bacon attack on mosque: Hate crime, conventional vandalism, or something normal people shouldn’t care about? We link to report, you decide.

Wells Fargo prepares ground for Foreclosure-gate. Looks like they will still try to go forward with foreclosures, but now with some legal mumbo-jumbo to CYA. We’ll see how this works out – but with title insurers backing away from foreclosed or short sale properties, Wells Fargo’s action might be moot.

So, you’re not totally depressed about the long-term economic outlook? Well, Mish will help you get there.

Iowahawk strikes again.

From UPI:

Farm loan delinquencies have hit a 17-year high, and 2.3 percent of all agricultural production loans made by commercial banks were past due, up from 1.3 percent a year ago, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The number of Minnesota farmers defaulting on agricultural loans has swelled dramatically since 2008, reaching levels not seen since the 1980s farm crisis permanently altered the state’s rural economy, reported the Minneapolis Star Tribune October 4…

This is just another symptom of the way our economic policies – exacerbated by Obama’s socialistic extremism – are crushing the productive base of the American economy. Farming is the basis of all economic activity – oh, sure, people like to look at the glittering lights of high tech, but if we aren’t growing food then we really aren’t doing anything sustainable, now are we? If we don’t have farmers, we don’t have anything…and farmers are being squeezed by taxes and regulations which simply make it impossible to profitably farm. This is now showing up in the increasing defaults in agricultural loans.

The only way we can get out of this mess is to work our way out of it – production is the key. Until we start making, mining and growing more of our own stuff, we’ll never get better. And I know I’m going on like a broken record here: but it has to keep being said until everyone understands it.

America is still the richest nation in the world, by far – with our people and our resources there is simply nothing we can’t do. But we have to take the socialist shackles off, balance the budget and get to work. On November 2nd we get our chance for the first, baby step towards a revived America – we’d better not blow it.