Big question: How in heck did this get made?

But timely, none the less. Some times you really do have to commit your life, your fortune and your sacred honor for something more important than yourself.

Here’s why – from Open Secrets:

…In 2010, Planned Parenthood and a California affiliate together spent more than $700,000 on federal lobbying efforts, a Center for Responsive Politics analysis of federal lobbying records finds. By comparison, all other organizations that primarily advocate for abortion rights collectively spent $247,280 on federal lobbying efforts during the same period, according to the Center’s research.

Planned Parenthood’s political influence efforts hardly stop at lobbying.

The organization’s political action committee, for example, donated more than $148,000 to federal candidates — almost all Democrats — during the 2010 election cycle. The PAC spent more than $443,000 overall.

Planned Parenthood also recorded $905,796 in independent expenditures during the 2010 cycle — money spent in support of, or in opposition to, federal political candidates, largely through advertisements. The top beneficiaries of this money were Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.)…

And how can Planned Parenthood afford this massive effort? Because PP gets about a third of its annual budget from the federal government. Right around $360 million per year. When you have that kind of “free” money coming in, shelling out $1.6 million for politics is easy. You can claim all you want that no federal funds are used for abortions or for politics, but the PP budget is the PP budget…you have to budget for salaries, insurance, equipment, buildings, abortions and lobbying. If Reid the Magic Money Fairy comes along and gives you a bag of money to cover, say, salaries, insurance and equipment, then the money you would have spent on that can go for other things – like abortions and politics.

Democrats are fighting for PP not because of health care. Believe it or not, you can get a cancer screening – for free – plenty of other places; additionally, if PP is cut off from federal funds, they’ll still have more than $700 million to spend…not exactly chump change and that will cover a lot of cancer screenings. No, Democrats are fighting in the last ditch on this because almost all the money PP spends on politics goes to Democrats – in return for showering $360 million of other peoples money on PP, Democrats get a $1.6 million payout which works out to a clear profit for the Democrats of, well, $1.6 million. Its a great deal for PP and Democrats. Not so much for everyone else.

Meanwhile, of course, PP is actually quite a nauseating and inhuman organization. They are America’s largest abortion provider. They cover up rape and child abuse. They eagerly assist in other criminal, sexual activity. They are dishonorable and dishonest and no decent person should have anything to do with PP. A cut off of federal funds is just an exercise in basic morality and common sense. Naturally, Democrats fight against it.

HAT TIP: PJ Tatler

From The Hill:

…A spokesman for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Friday morning said spending cuts, not social policy provisions, are the “largest issue” preventing an agreement to keep the government open.

“While nothing will be decided until everything is decided, the largest issue is still spending cuts,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said in an email. “The American people want to cut spending to help the private sector create jobs — and the Democrats that run Washington don’t.”…

Democrats are already in war mode on this – using the tired, worn out play book of the left that any spending cut is an attack upon the poor and helpless. We might as well get in to war mode, too – start attacking all the monumentally stupid spending the Democrats want to keep. Let’s have it out – a nice, contentious and long-term battle, and then let the people ultimately decide between the sides. This is a fight I’m sure we will win.

Think about this – we’re going to spend more than a trillion dollars more in 2012 than we spent in 2008. On what? I mean, seriously, its not like we weren’t spending bags of money in 2008 – what additional, vital government tasks require us to spend more than a trillion dollars more than we spent in 2008? Anyone got an answer for that? Can anyone say what government is doing now which (a) wasn’t done in 2008 and (b) is vital to the lives, safety and liberty of the American people?

Mountains of flapdoodle have been piled on to government…and the Democrats are merely trying to defend this, because that is how they buy votes and pay off campaign donors. It is time for this to come to an and – and it won’t come to an end unless we fight it out. Shut it down. Don’t give an inch – until Democrats agree to stop bankrupting America, make no deals.

From Daily Press:

The leader of the free world may be coming to Williamsburg for some rest and relaxation if Congress is able to come to agreement on the budget. President Obama and the First Family are planning to visit the area this weekend in what the White House described Wednesday as a “long-planned family trip to Colonial Williamsburg.”…

I’m sure they’ll have a great time – and I’m sure the President’s daughters will enjoy themselves and learn a bit of American history (perhaps even how to be proud of America before your husband is a front-runner for President?)…but it does seems a bit insensitive. I mean, what with wars going on, the nation going bankrupt and more and more Americans not being able to afford a family trip due to the high cost of gasoline…perhaps Obama might have just sent the girls and stayed home, himself?

Well, here’s what we’ll do – we’ll work night and day from now on to ensure that Obama has plenty of time to spend with his family come 2013.

Michael Yon’s latest:

…Today, spring 2011, we are making net progress in Afghanistan. I first began writing from here in 2006. In these five years I’ve brought you unending negative news on the matter of how well the Unites States and our allies have succeeded in meeting our goals in the war. But now, for the first time, the tide may be turning. Different enemy factions in this theater have been taking a brutal beating.

This isn’t the endgame. But the battle for 2011 is unfolding before our eyes. Recent observations suggest that it will be the most deadly so far…

The bottom line seems to be that good things are getting done, it is very difficult and often bloody work and, in the end, we can come out of Afghanistan with a win – or, at least, as much of a win as we’re likely to get. The troops on the ground (and, it must be noted, the various contractors and aid groups, as well as a goodly portion of the Afghan people) are willing to do what it takes – what will decide the fate of Afghanistan is our political will to see it through. Will we keep it up?

2012 is coming. Obama clearly would prefer to have Afghanistan done before he gets deep in to his re-election mode. The American people are tired of war – and increasingly distracted by domestic woes. The Taliban will want to try and drag things out and continue to sap our political will to keep it up. Everything is balanced on a knife edge…

I pray for our troops, for our allies and for our leaders to show the wisdom and courage necessary to do the right thing.

May happen – from CBS:

The United States may consider sending troops into Libya with a possible international ground force that could aid the rebels, according to the general who led the military mission until NATO took over.

Army Gen. Carter Ham also told lawmakers Thursday that added American participation would not be ideal, and ground troops could erode the international coalition and make it more difficult to get Arab support for operations in Libya.

Ham said the operation was largely stalemated now and was more likely to remain that way since America has transferred control to NATO…

This is what comes of not moving at the right time. As I’ve said, had we moved early, a bit of air power would have been enough to topple Gaddafi when the rebels were right outside Tripoli. By the time we did move, air power was only sufficient to ensure that Gaddafi wasn’t able to roll over the rebels. At that time, ground forces should have been on the table – and right off the coast of Libya…and, at need, an airborne division and Marine regiment or two should have dropped on Tripoli as the rebels were advancing. That would have finished it. Now, air power is insufficient and we’d probably have a pretty nasty fight on our hands if we tried to get right in to Tripoli.

So what’s next? If we don’t just wash our hands of it, it will have to take a major ground force effort…both to back up the rebels as well as ensure they can advance. At least a division of troops (about 20,000 or so) will be necessary to finish this thing off – as well as the willingness to both take and lose lives. What will Obama do? I don’t know, but I’m not at all hopeful that we’ll either get out or go all the way in…my fear is that we’ll just hang around as things get worse.

As an aside, anyone besides me note how rebel movements in the Moslem world seem to have cooled down? Its like they no longer have any faith that the international community will help them, or something…

Hot Air has an ongoing thread of the stunning news coming out of Wisconsin where, on Wednesday, all and sundry figured the union-tool had eked out a victory over justice…but now things may have changed dramatically:

In a political bombshell, the clerk in a Republican stronghold released new vote totals adding a net total of 7,582 new votes in the tight state Supreme Court race to Justice David Prosser, swinging the race significantly in his favor.

Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus said Thursday that she failed to save in her computer and consequently report 14,315 votes cast in the city of Brookfield, omitting them entirely in an unofficial tally released after Tuesday’s election. The new totals give 10,859 more votes to Prosser from Brookfield and 3,456 more to Kloppenburg, she said. Smaller discrepancies turned up in two other communities as well…

Liberals, naturally, are upset – and that is a good thing. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: From the comments over at Hot Air:

I’m very late to this thread, but does anybody else half-suspect that maybe the Republicans in Wisconsin finally did something on purpose in order to outfox the vote-fraud artists? Like — deliberately hold back thousands of ballots and claim that they had fewer votes than they actually did so that the fraudsters would adjust their vote counts to a figure that was too low?

If that’s what the Republicans did, then they deserve an “attaboy” for strategic thinking. 🙂

I did get the distinct impression on election night that someone had the slows in reporting the numbers from GOP strong holds…no evidence, just a sensation, as it were. This, to me, was good tactics – it is very hard for Democrats to steal an election when they don’t know how many votes they need. Regardless of what actually happened, the rule must be from now on that solidly GOP districts must not report until very, very late…count ’em by hand if you have to, but go as slow as possible. Make the Democrats shove their fraud through before they’re sure how many they need…that’ll put a huge spoke in their vote fraud wheel.

From The Economic Collapse:

#1 The Obama administration projects that the federal budget deficit will be approximately $1,600,000,000,000 this year. Right now the Republicans and the Democrats are fighting tooth and nail over budget cuts. The Republicans are proposing to cut the budget deficit by 3.8%. The Democrats only want to cut it by 2.1%.

#2 The U.S. economy actually grew more between 1930 and 1940 than it did during the decade that recently ended.

#3 Over the last decade, the number of Americans without health insurance has risen from about 38 million to about 52 million.

#4 Agricultural commodities are absolutely soaring. The price of corn has more than doubled over the last 12 months. Considering the fact that corn is in literally thousands of our food products, that is a very frightening statistic.

#5 Between 1999 and 2009, real median household income in the United States declined by 5.0%.

#6 It is being estimated that total U.S. government debt will grow by 42 percent by the year 2015….

It goes on for 21 more items…

The good news: this can all be fixed. Not easily. Not quickly. Not without a lot of pain. But, it can be fixed.

Cut taxes, balance the budget, cut off trade with tyrannical slave-labor regimes like China, start making/mining/growing things here at home…it can be done, if we have the will to do it.

HAT TIP: Zero Hedge

Making it clear that he (a) doesn’t understand what is going on out there and (b) will remain devoted to his idiotic “green energy” plans no matter what happens – from The Herald News:

…“I’m just going to be honest with you. There’s not much we can do next week or two weeks from now,” the president told workers at a wind turbine plant. It’s a theme Obama’s struck before as he tries to show voters he’s attuned to a top economic concern with gas prices pushing toward $4 a gallon…

…Obama needled one questioner who asked about gas prices, now averaging close to $3.70 a gallon nationwide, and suggested that the gentleman consider getting rid of his gas-guzzling vehicle.

“If you’re complaining about the price of gas and you’re only getting 8 miles a gallon, you know,” Obama said laughingly. “You might want to think about a trade-in.”…

Does this idiot even know what mileage cars get these days? Let me clue you in, Barry, I get about 22 miles to the gallon…and it hurts, a lot, to pay $3.89 a gallon. Its going to hurt even more when it costs $4.00 a gallon. And here’s the real kicker, laughing boy, the more I have to spend on gas, the less I have to spend on everything else…which means your vaunted “recovery” starts to fizzle right quick.

And one other thing, chuckles, if you hadn’t started holding back on oil development in 2009 there would be more domestic oil available here in 2011…no, not enough to make us energy independent, but more than there is right now. We pay more for foreign oil than we do for domestic oil – or have you not noted the difference in price between “West Texas Intermediate” and, say, “Brent Crude Oil”? Guess what, the Texas stuff costs $108 a barrel, the Brent product is $122. And this leaves aside all the jobs and wealth creation we could have obtained by a full court press for oil starting a couple years ago.

Geesh, 2012 cannot get here fast enough…

John Fund at Opinion Journal:

http://s.wsj.net/media/swf/main.swf

The claim is that 10,000 more votes went for the Supreme Court race than were cast in other races in the liberal stronghold of Dane County – and I recall that in 2004 there were enough questions about the vote to convince me that Wisconsin was stolen for John Kerry. One thing certain, when you get a vote like this combined with the invariable Democrat practice of voter fraud, there will be lots of questions. The only real issue – do the Republicans in Wisconsin have the guts to really get in there and investigate?

Find out how many in-eligible votes were cast; find out of any felons voted; find out if any out-of-State liberal activists voted. Make an issue of it – don’t just take the loss and let is slide. Lets fight it out, right here and right now.