As we head in to the crucial – as in, “this is crucial to the fate of our nation” – debate over raising the debt ceiling, this new Rasmussen Survey should be taken to heart by all Republicans:

…The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 68% of Likely Voters prefer a government with fewer services and lower taxes rather than a more active one with more services and higher taxes. This is virtually identical to last month and consistent with findings since September…

We hold the advantage in this debate. Obama will give his SOTU tomorrow and he’ll try to dangle government goodies in front of people as a means of deflect everyone away from the necessary budget cuts. Democrats and their MSM lap dogs will be on and on over the next few weeks that any cut, any where, will result in granny having to eat dog food. The whole force of the Ruling Class – including many alleged Republicans and conservatives – will be brought to bear on one issue: getting the debt limit raised without any fundamental cuts or budget reform. The hope of these people is that if they can deflect it in 2011, then by 2012 the GOP can be re-captured by the Establishment and all can go on as before. We daren’t let them do this.

Now is the time for the GOP to recapture the spirit which created the Republican party in the 1850’s. We are the party of the people – what Democrat Stephen Douglas once called the “small fisted farmers, mudsills and greasy mechanics” who simply didn’t understand the nuances of politics (back then the “nuance” had to do with protecting slavery; these days, its about protecting things like abortion, bankers and government unions…the more things change…). Here is a our great chance to recover our name and make the Republican party the party of free men, the party of the Great Republic.

So, don’t blow it – stand firm; resist all attempts to steam roller us in to going along. The people are on our side – as long as we stay on theirs.

Nothing like putting Obama and his Democrats on the spot with this:

Legislation which would permanently prohibit taxpayer funding of abortion across all federal programs is “one of our highest legislative priorities,” the new Speaker of the House has said in his introduction to the legislation.

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Reps. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) and Joe Pitts (R-Penn.) held a press conference on Jan. 20 to discuss the introduction of H.R. 3, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.”

Speaker Boehner said the new Republican majority is keeping its commitment to taxpayers by “ensuring their tax dollars are never used to fund abortions.”…

Obama has claimed – via that Executive Order with which he purchased Bart Stupak – that he doesn’t want federal funding for abortion. Now he’ll have his chance to stand up and be counted. No more messing around – let’s get everyone on record, prior to 2012, on how they believe on federal funding for abortion. It is a clarifying issue – it allows the public to make an informed decision. Kinda gets around any “personally opposed” nonsense. Do you, or don’t you?

The sort of thing which, if you or I tried it, would land us in jail – from MSNBC:

Concerns that the Federal Reserve could suffer losses on its massive bond holdings may have driven the central bank to adopt a little-noticed accounting change with huge implications: it makes insolvency much less likely.

The significant shift was tucked quietly into the Fed’s weekly report on its balance sheet and phrased in such technical terms that it was not even reported by financial media when originally announced on Jan. 6…

What seems to have happened is that the Federal Reserve, holding perhaps trillions in worthless assets, has decided that if anything looks bad on the Fed’s balance sheet, it actually applies to the Treasury’s balance sheet. In other words, if you go to Vegas and start losing money, just pass the losses over to the guy sitting next to you, and you come out looking good.

Of course, that other guy might not be able to pay, but that doesn’t matter…what matters is that for a little while longer, everyone around the table can pretend there is no problem, and thus continue on as if nothing is wrong.

Our peril, though, remains the same – too much debt chasing too little wealth. We’re in a pickle and there is no way out unless we very swiftly balance our budget. Of course, that would tend to make banks and other financial institutions go bankrupt as they are only kept afloat by bags of free money provided by the Federal Reserve. And so, that option isn’t really considered – there’s no upside to banksters and bureaucrats in a balanced budget. Heck, might as well make an economy which is geared towards the small and mid-sized producer of tangible goods! Where does something like Goldman Sachs fit in to such an economy? Not even worth considering…

They are juggling desperately, our Ruling Class. How long can they keep it up? I don’t know – but they can’t keep it up forever.

HAT TIP: Mish’s

A legacy of over 50 million lives, snuffed before a breath could be taken.. and sometimes after a breath was taken:

Johnson learned last week that Philadelphia prosecutors believe Gosnell frequently delivered late-term babies alive at his clinic, then severed their spines with scissors, and often stored the fetal bodies — along with staff lunches — in refrigerators at the squalid facility. Tiny baby feet, prosecutors said, were discovered in specimen jars, lined up in a macabre collection.

“Did he do that to mine? Did he stab him in the neck?” Johnson asked at her North Philadelphia home. “Because I was out of it. I don’t know what he did to my baby.”

Gosnell was charged last week with killing seven babies born alive and with the 2009 death of a 41-year-old refugee after a botched abortion at the clinic, which prosecutors have called a drug mill by day and abortion mill by night. The medical practice alone netted him at least $1.8 million a year, much of it in cash, they say.

But the women going there were merely exercising their freedom of choice, right?

When Davida Johnson walked into Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s clinic to get an abortion in 2001, she saw what she described as dazed women sitting in dirty, bloodstained recliners. As the abortion got under way, she had a change of heart — but claims she was forced by the doctor to continue.

“I said, ‘I don’t want to do this,’ and he smacked me. They tied my hands and arms down and gave me more medication,” Johnson told The Associated Press.

The AP tries to mitigate the horror of abortion by blaming it on the abortion protesters:

Johnson, then 21, had a 3-year-old daughter when she became pregnant again. She said she first went to Planned Parenthood in downtown Philadelphia but was frightened away by protesters.

“The picketers out there, they just scared me half to death,” Johnson, now 30, recalled this week.

Someone sent her to Gosnell’s West Philadelphia clinic, at the Women’s Medical Society, saying anti-abortion protesters wouldn’t be a problem there. She said she paid him $400 cash.

But really, what is the difference between what Gosnell does and what other abortion providers do on a regular basis? It comes down to a difference of only around 6 inches. You see, while most late-term abortion providers wait until the baby is partially delivered up to the neck before inserting a pair of scissors into the baby’s skull, Gosnell did the exact procedure, only a minute or two later after the baby was fully delivered.

Either way presents a heinous end; grand larceny committed against human beings of their chance, nay their right to live their lives; the only offense committed by the infant being its mere existence.

Contrary to popular belief, examples of man’s inhumanity to man do not exist exclusively on battlefields, gulags, nor death camps. Man’s inhumanity to man is illustrated every day of the year, right within our own neighborhoods, right under our noses, to the most innocent and the most vulnerable among us.

As Mother Teresa of Calcutta once said, “It is a very great poverty to decide that a child must die that you might live as you wish.”

My article for The European on the Tuscon tragedy and TEA Party issues.

The absurdity of Roe.

Geraldo Rivera is a Republican. A lot of people have had lots of trouble with Geraldo over the years – I never have; seems like an all right guy and a good patriot, even if he’s not right about everything.

The Tuscon aftermath as Obama’s “Mandella Moment” – but can the leopard change his spots all the way through 2012?

Egypt’s Ruling Class prepares for a revolution.

The consensus of economic experts is that we have a splendid fourth quarter of 2010…everything is great (pay no attention to rising gas and food prices) and we’re in a recovery (ignore all those banks which just announced hefty lay offs) so no sweat, at all. You can believe them, if you like…and, hey, the initial GDP numbers which come out may even be as high as the 3.5% projected for the fourth quarter. After you read those reports, ask yourself: does this economy look like its recovering?

Dear Nazi.

Kinda hard to tell which is which – from Powerline on Obama’s appointment of GE boss Jeffrey Immelt as economic adviser/czar/mafia don/what-have-you:

…GE got a taste of the good life when it got in on the bank bailout. As the Washington Post reported in a major article in mid-2009, GE had quietly become the biggest beneficiary of one of the government’s key bank bailout programs. At the same time GE also avoided many of the restrictions faced by the big banks

The Post noted that GE did not initially qualify for the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, under which the government guaranteed debt sold by banks: “But regulators soon loosened the eligibility requirements, in part because of behind-the-scenes appeals from GE.”

GE thus joined the big banks collectively saving billions of dollars by raising money for their operations at lower interest rates. The Post reported that GE Capital had issued nearly a quarter of the $340 billion in debt backed by the TLGP…

So, is Obama hiring his corporate pet in order to curry favor with corporate America prior to 2012 – or has corporate America put its man in charge of economic policy in order to pull Obama’s strings? In either case, what we don’t have here is an economic team headed up by anyone who cares about the poor and middle class. It also isn’t a team with the faintest concern for American manufacturing, farming and mining…it is concerned with subsidies, faddish business notions and raw, government power over the economy.

Immelt is the poster-boy for Big Corporation working hand in hand with Big Government to protect and enrich the Ruling Class at the expense of everyone else. Immelt isn’t interested in the American economy – he’s interested in people like him remaining rich and in charge of whatever economy is most profitable at the moment. We can expect from this appointment all sorts of demands to increase taxpayer funding of various corporate enterprises, new regulations to keep small and mid-sized players out of the market, more shipping of our farms, factories and mines to foreign lands, more fiat currency, more debt, more government spending…in short, more of what made everything a mess.

One must keep in mind just what sort of people rise high in large corporations – people who have a strong desire to make lots of money combined with a willingness to apple polish superiors. Immelt didn’t get where he is by being the man most suited to ensure long term profitability off of making the best products here in America…he got where he is because in years past some one already high up in the corporate food chain took a shine to him and gave him a leg up on the corporate ladder. From there it was simply a matter of being good at office politics, working out ways to squeeze another half percent profit on the quarterly balance sheet (done by letting people go, shipping facilities overseas, getting new government subsidies, that sort of thing…) while at the same time avoiding having a particular screw up assigned to his name.

What I’d really like to know is how our liberals feel about this – here’s your man, Obama, liberals and he’s put in charge of his economic policy a man deeply involved in what you call “corporate welfare”. Are you now going to wake up and realize that your liberal leaders are just snowing you?

I won’t hold my breath.

From The Daily Caller:

…(Chomsky) explained those feelings led to November’s election results, and would have serious repercussions for civilization.

“All of this combines the latest election a couple of days ago,” he continued. “You could almost interpret it a kind of a death knell for the species. There was an article in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, you know – not a radical rag exactly. They’re running through the new Republicans coming to Congress and they’re worried about them.”…

I once attended a lecture given by a Dominican priest and he noted that there are areas of expertise that people have and they should be wary of straying outside them. He, a priest and educator, was fully qualified to opine on matters of philosophy and theology, but wouldnt want to stray in to physics because it wasn’t his area of expertise. So, too, should a physicist be cautious about making theological pronouncements. Noam Chomsky is a brilliant linguist but he seems to have never learned this simple lesson – don’t go in to what you don’t understand.

Unfortunately for people like Chomsky, such caution is seldom exercised. Chomsky knows very little of politics, economics or history, but he has pronounced on them for decades now. His whole training and experience is built around the rarified atmosphere of MIT – he doesn’t know how Joe Average lives; doesn’t understand how wealth is created; doesn’t understand that because he, Chomsky, is brilliant in one area it doesn’t mean that he’s brilliant in all areas…nor that someone without Chomsky’s credentials could be equally brilliant in other areas.

When we battle liberalism is it good to remember that we are fighting people who really are convinced that they are better than everyone else. Better intellectually as well as morally. To someone like Chomsky a smart and good person cannot think differently from Chomsky – and so anyone who does think different is either so stupid or wicked as to be dangerous. I, as a conservative, cannot be conservative unless I am one of those things – stupid, or wicked. If I were smart and good, I’d be a liberal, goes liberal thinking.

The crisis we face in America is because for nigh on a century we have allowed people like Chomsky to have a say in areas they have no particular ability in. A credentialed – as opposed to educated – elite has battened itself upon us and has made a complete hash out of our society. Our whole economic and political system has now been geared towards serving the needs and desires of a small, elite Ruling Class (among whose members are some ostensible Republicans and conservatives) – and the mess we have (hollowed out economy, social disintegration, etc) is the result. In order to cure our society we must put people like Chomsky in his place – to keep him as a brilliant linguist, but ensure that when it comes time to decide what level of taxation is good or what sort of regulations to put on business, he has no more say than anyone else.

The results of the “new tone” in America’s Middle East policy – from Commentary:

Lebanon’s Druze leader Walid Jumblatt now says he “supports” Hezbollah and the ghastly regime in Syria that murdered his father and his friend Rafik Hariri. Hezbollah’s fan boys should not kid themselves here. Jumblatt is under duress and is only saying what he must to ensure his own survival and that of his people.

Saad Hariri remains defiant, but Michael Young — the best analyst of Lebanon’s internal politics — thinks he probably won’t return as prime minister. If that’s the case, Lebanon’s Cedar Revolution is well and truly cooked. Beirut is being cleverly reconquered by Damascus and Tehran, and is rejoining, against its will, the Iran-led Resistance Bloc.

Everybody in Lebanon needs to understand something: Israel is more likely than ever to target the entire country during the next round of conflict…

All too true, I’m afraid – and what else could the Druze leaders do? If they are defiant, then Hezbollah’s thugs will exterminate them. Syria and Iran see Lebanon as their only platform for attacking Israel – the Palestinian leadership on the West Bank doesn’t want any part of a renewed war; Jordan lies at the mercy of Israeli power; Egypt has enough problems without fighting Israel. None of these will suit as a means for Iran’s leaders to attack Israel…but Hezbollah has got control of Lebanon, and Hezbollah will follow orders.

But as the article notes, if there is renewed conflict then Lebanon’s Christian population cannot be spared by Israeli forces – a renewed war means war of all Lebanon against all Israel. And as Iran continues to arm Hezbollah to the teeth, we must presume that war is envisioned at some, future date…likely right around the time Iran gets ready to test and deploy a nuclear weapon.

All of this is the result of simple, American failure. We’ve cuddled up to the tyrants in Damascus, cut the rug out from underneath the anti-Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, turned a cold shoulder to Israel and tip toed around both Iran’s nuclear program as well as their continued and extensive support of global terrorism, including that part of it which takes American lives in Afghanistan and Iraq. We’ve been so ardent to show that we’re no longer Bush’s America that we’ve essentially given away the Middle East store to our and Israel’s most deadly enemies.

Eventually this error will have to be paid for in blood – ours, Israel’s and the Moslem world’s. You can’t shake hand with tyrants; you can’t befriend those who’s whole existence is based upon a rejection of you and all you stand for. War our enemies want, and so war we must give them until they have, at long last, had enough.

The Grand Jury report quoted by Pro-Publica:

The grand jury report said that one look at the place would have detected the problems, but the Pennsylvania Department of Health hadn’t inspected the place since 1993. Here’s the grand jury report, in surprisingly strong language:

The Pennsylvania Department of Health abruptly decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all. The politics in question were not anti-abortion, but pro. With the change of administration from Governor Casey to Governor Ridge, officials concluded that inspections would be “putting a barrier up to women” seeking abortions.

“Even nail salons in Pennsylvania are monitored more closely for client safety,” the report states. “Without regular inspections, providers like Gosnell continue to operate; unlawful and dangerous third-trimester abortions go undetected; and many women, especially poor women, suffer.”

To give you an idea of how bad it was – as many as 100 children born alive at this abortuary were murdered by using scissors to cut their spinal cords – late-term abortion in practice.

Over at Noonan for Nevada I call for the inspection of each abortion clinic in the United States and for Congressional hearings on this matter. It must be noted, with sadness, that it was a pro-choice Republican – Tom Ridge – who ended the practice of inspecting abortion clinics; because when it comes to protecting merchants of death, there is a bi-partisan consensus that the lives of women and children don’t matter.

This is what the Culture of Death is all about – you think that someone who makes his money off of murdering unborn children is going to be honorable or decent? Get real – and let’s get to the truth about this matter. And then let’s get rid of his hideous, anti-human practice.

The man doesn’t have a clue – from the Wall Street Journal:

President Barack Obama will call for new government spending on infrastructure, education and research in his State of the Union address Tuesday, sharpening his response to Republicans in Congress who are demanding deep budget cuts, people familiar with the speech said.

Mr. Obama will argue that the U.S., even while trying to reduce its budget deficit, must make targeted investments to foster job growth and boost U.S. competitiveness in the world economy. The new spending could include initiatives aimed at building the renewable-energy sector—which received billions of dollars in stimulus funding—and rebuilding roads to improve transportation, people familiar with the matter said. Money to restructure the No Child Left Behind law’s testing mandates and institute more competitive grants also could be included…

We’re bankrupt and Obama is going to call for more green energy boondoggles and “shovel ready” projects! Goodness, haven’t we spent enough on this, already? Shouldn’t all the billions from 2009 and 2010 already be getting us ahead of the game on fixing pot holes and building windmills.

Ok, Mr. President, if you want this fight, you’ll get it. There is no money left – its all gone; we’re broke. Other than the vital needs of law enforcement, national defense and keeping body and soul together, everything has to be cut…even if you could say that Project X is a good thing, it will just have to wait until the budget is balanced and debt id being paid down.

This is called “setting priorities” and it is what leaders do…pity we don’t have one in the White House.