Madison Project

One of the most puzzling phenomena in GOP politics the past few years is the incorrigible fawning over Chris Christie.  He is regarded is one of the biggest stars in the party and is being groomed as a future presidential candidate.  The fact is that aside for his strong stance against public sector unions, Christie has been quite liberal on many important issues, such as gun control, global warming job-killing regulations, and illegal immigration.  He has stuck his thumb in the eyes of conservatives on numerous occasions.  Now he is pulling out all the stops for Mitt Romney, assailing anyone who questions his phony conservative credentials.  He even suggested that those who compare Romneycare to Obamacare are “completely intellectually dishonest.”

This past week, Chris Christie was foist into the debate over the ridiculous concept of gay marriage when the state legislature in New Jersey passed a law recognizing these “marriages.”  Christie is keeping his promise to veto the legislation; however, some of his appointments to high offices within the state raise serious doubts about his commitment to fight for traditional marriage.  Here’s the scoop from NRO’s Maggie Gallagher:

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Many prominent figures in the Republican intelligentsia have suggested that we call a truce on social issues, while focusing exclusively on fiscal issues during this time of economic peril.  As an uncompromising fiscal and social conservative, I fully agree.  We should focus on the economy.  However, there is one problem with this desideratum; there is no truce on social issues.  Even as conservatives – including social conservatives – are focusing on fiscal issues, social liberals are working indefatigably to implement their radical agenda.  Perforce, any “truce” on social issues would be unilateral in nature, and would be tantamount to complete capitulation, ceding the moral fiber of this country to the hedonistic left.

While everyone focuses on those stern So-cons, they forget the vociferous push from So-libs to turn our nation, which was founded on Judeo-Christian values, into a morally debased wasteland.  Yes, they are doing so even during the economic downturn.  They don’t take a break to focus on fiscal issues, or more aptly put, they focus on both at the same time.

After the severe losses from the 2010 elections, there are very few states where Democrats control both houses of the state legislature and the state house.  However, in every state where they enjoy such indomitable power, the So-lib mob is out in full force pushing a radical licentious agenda, most notably, a push to redefine marriage from its most basic definition.  My home state of Maryland is one such example.

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If I were pressed to offer one anecdote exemplifying our failure to elect consistent conservatives to Congress last November, the story of Senator Jerry Moran and Big Wind would be at the top of the list.

In 2010, then-Congressman Jerry Moran beat former Congressman Todd Tiahrt for the Republican nomination for Senate in Kansas running as a red meat conservative.  He easily won the seat in this solid Republican state and summarily joined the ‘Tea Party Caucus’ in the Senate.  Nothing emblematizes the convictions of the Tea Party more than its fervent opposition to special interest handouts and government interventions in the private sector as a way of picking winners and losers.  Yet, Senator Moran let the cat out of the bag last week that he has absolutely no compunction about picking winners and losers, or in the case of Big Wind, big losers.

Last week, Senator Moran announced that he is submitting an amendment to the terrible Senate highway bill (S.1813) that would extend the 2.2 cent/ per kilowatt-hour Production Tax Credit (PTC) for another 4 years.  This special interest handout to Solar and Wind is slated to expire at the end of the year.  What happened to Moran’s Tea Party views?  Well, he unabashedly threw them under the solar-powered bus:

Asked about opposition to extending the credit expressed by Rep. Mike Pompeo of Wichita, Moran said: “There are members of Congress who feel we ought not to pick winners and losers, to let the markets decided. I believe it’s better to get this industry up and running, then let the country decide… rather than pull the rug out overnight.”

Wow!  At least he’s honest.  I wish we had known that before the election.

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During every election season, Republican career politicians tend to ingratiate themselves with faux conservative rhetoric in order to entice us into voting for them.  “We must defeat those tax and spend Democrats,” they warn us with every TV ad and fundraising letter.  Yet, after many of them are honored with our financial support  in the election, they go back to Washington and vote for much of the big-government ideas that they so passionately inveighed against when seeking votes back home.

Nobody exemplifies this cycle of hypocrisy more than former Congressman Pete Hoekstra, running for Senate in Michigan.  He is rightly dubbing Democrat Senator Debbie Stabenow as Debbie Spenditnow.  Unfortunately, when he was in Congress he supported all of the same compassionate conservative ideas that have engendered so much debt.  Luckily, we have a true conservative in the race who is calling him out for his hypocrisy.  Clark Durant, who is one of our most recent endorsees, is up with another ad exposing Hoekstra for obfuscating his own record even while he attacks Stabenow for being a big spender.

Many of us are off of work today, but are unaware of the true origin of this holiday.  Indeed, today is not Presidents’ Day; it is the legal holiday to celebrate George Washington’s Birthday (his actual birthday is Wednesday).  Washington’s birthday has been usurped by liberals (and marketers), as it has been morphed into a generic celebration of all American presidents.

In 1885, President Chester Arthur signed the original bill to make Washington’s birthday – February 22 – a federal holiday.  It wasn’t until 1968, when Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holidays Act, that the holiday was moved to the third Monday in February.  Now, the holiday can only fall out between Lincoln’s (Feb. 12) and Washington’s birthdays, but never on February 22, the original date of the holiday.  There was no official act of Congress that changed the name of the holiday (although an earlier draft the 1968 law did), but the random date opened the door for those with influence over the culture to corrupt the name.  Many states, including my home state, officially call it Presidents’ Day.

It’s been over 10 years since the 9/11 terror attacks, yet we still have not learned the lessons that are so vital to preventing another terror attack.

This past Friday, we all heard the shocking news that a suicide bomber plot against the U.S. Capitol had been foiled by the FBI and the Capitol police.  Far less surprising was the ethnicity, religion, and birthplace of the terrorist.  The terrorist, who was caught carrying defunct explosives near the Capitol, is a 29-year-old Muslim male from Morocco.  His name is El Khalifi.  He was caught a few hours after he attended peaceful services at the Dar Al-Hijrah, a Falls Church Mosque that was once led by Anwar al-Awlaki.  Nidal Malik Hassan, the Fort Hood shooter, was also among the esteemed worshippers at this mosque before he plotted his attack.

The more important question is how did Khalifi enter the country?  Did he fly in on a magic carpet from Afghanistan?  Did he run across the southern border?  Nope.  Like many of the unsuccessful terrorists since 9/11 (44 others, according to the Heritage Foundation), he came through a legal point of entry, but overstayed his B-2 tourist visa …by 13 years.

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This post has been updated

When Republicans agreed to raise the debt ceiling last year, not only did they credit Obama’s credit card by $2.1 trillion, they also gave him a lifeline until after the election.  At the time, it was projected that $2.1 trillion in new debt allowance was sufficient to last until January 2013, sparing Obama the embarrassment of raising the debt ceiling right before the election.  Well, it appears that we’ve blown through the new debt so quickly that we might bump up against the $16.394 trillion debt ceiling before November 2012.

Last week, Senator Rob Portman released an analysis showing that we will reach the debt ceiling before the end of the fiscal year:

According to Table 6-2 in the President’s Budget’s “Analytical Perspectives” volume, the President estimates the total debt subject to the statutory limit – growing by $132 billion per month – will reach $16.334 trillion at the end of FY 2012 (September 30, 2012). This is just $60 billion below the current debt limit.  Thus, without a change in the debt trajectory, the debt ceiling will be eclipsed by October 15, 2012 unless the Department of Treasury again uses emergency protocols to shift that date past Election Day 2012.

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What a week!  We started the week as a major underdog against this terrible highway bill.  It looked like the forces of big government had the inside track to garner broad bipartisan support for the highway bill in both the House and the Senate.  On Wednesday, John Boehner announced that he would pull the highway bill (H.R. 7) from the floor until after next week’s recess.  He simply did not have the votes.  Many conservative members who were previously indifferent to the highway bill began to voice their opposition, due in large part to our efforts to educate them about the debt and future bailouts that would be engendered by this bill.

Earlier this morning, we won another (temporary) victory in the Senate.  Last week, just 9 Republicans voted to block consideration of the bill.  Today, 42 Republicans opposed cloture on passage of the Senate version (S.1813), just enough to sustain the filibuster.  We can now rest easy until February 28.

We’re not out of the woods yet, but we have the purveyors of big government on the run.  Thanks for all your calls, emails, and letters to Congress.  They’re working!