Thoughts From A Conservative Mom

Posts Tagged ‘House’

From the Constitutionalist Today:

I got asked yesterday, “What happens to the Tea Party after Election Day?” It’s a great question as the loudest drum beat has been leading us to 2 November, 2010. The first reaction is to say it depends on who wins and it is becoming clear the Progressives will lose on many fronts. For the thousands in Colorado who have come to meetings, gone to rallies, town halls, written countless letters and made calls to elected officials on issues ranging from health care to out of control spending, it has been a long road. Many will look at 2 November as the culmination of all their efforts, but it’s a dangerous conclusion to reach as the real work begins the morning after no matter who we send to Washington or Denver.

If the GOP takes over the US House, possibly the Senate, and makes major gains in Denver you’ll see those who really haven’t been active beyond the lure of a few rallies go back to sleep. Even some hard core Tea Party members will want to take a breather. After two years of fighting it’s not a bad thing, but that rest will be short lived.

Tea Party members understand an unchallenged GOP will not seriously carry the fight of limited government. It won’t be the Lindsey Grahams displaying the political courage to defend what will be described as draconian spending cuts. That will be left to the true conservatives. Bad things are coming from Washington and they can not be stopped unless those we elect are truly prepared to make the political sacrifices needed to reverse the damage of the last 18 months. Politicians taking the hard stands will be under enormous pressure from a defeated Progressive Party and the propaganda driven press who paint their efforts as destructive and extreme. Where does the political courage to fight come from? It comes from those that send politicians to Washington and Denver. The first time a conservative stands up with a meaningful reduction they better see a field of Gadsden flags behind them or it will be our failure, not theirs, if they never try it again.

It will take the Tea Party having the courage to defend those who we demand make the hard choices because with real cuts comes real pain. We must be willing to not just educate the public on why this pain is required, but we must be willing to endure the pain ourselves. It’s one thing to just tell government to cut programs; it’s another to actually do without what they provide.

After Election Day, the People must retake the reins of government. That requires active involvement at all levels. It involves making the effort to actively support and hold accountable those we elect in November. No one can do this alone and, thankfully, we are not alone. The working Tea Party groups, The 9-12 Project, CCM, AFP, Liberty on the Rocks and the many other liberty groups are the business end of the Tea Party movement. Join them. Work to advance the victories of Election Day or they will be lost forever. Americans stood up to an out of control government and are on the verge of victory. What we do with it will set the course of the nation for decades. Our involvement has given the Republic a second chance, we may not get another.

A Tea Party Manifesto: Take Over The GOP

GOP needs to move beyond ‘Default Mode’

When the Founding Fathers issued the Declaration of Independence, they proclaimed: “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, and Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent, have made it clear that they are willing to operate without such authority in order to pass their “cap-and-trade” energy-tax legislation. For the sake of our representative government, they must be stopped.

On Nov. 2, the American people will give their consent to the candidates whose legislative agenda they support. Based on the discontent throughout the country, both sides of the aisle think the upcoming midterm elections will reduce the size of the current Democratic congressional majority. A widespread loss of Democratic seats would be an unmistakable condemnation of the far-left legislative agenda being pushed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Obama administration.

Incredibly, this forecasted repudiation of big government could be greeted by ousted politicians with a repudiation of voter intent. After the election, but before the newly elected Congress is sworn in in January, the current Congress may call a lame-duck session in November and December. During this session, congressmen and senators removed from power may still vote to enact new legislation. Some Democrats already are talking about their plans to exploit this session to address unpopular issues.

Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lieberman have been particularly unabashed about their hopes to advance the cap-and-trade bill in a lame-duck session where defeated congressmen and senators would be estranged from the will of people. This bill – which intentionally would raise the cost of energy produced by fossil fuels so we would use less of it – has not had enough support to pass. In fact, the bill was shelved recently by Mr. Reid, who clearly stated, “We know we don’t have the votes.” They don’t have the votes because congressmen do not want to vote for another expensive, unpopular bill just before a highly contested election. Of course, those congressmen who lose their election will no longer be accountable to the people in a lame-duck session.

Mr. Lieberman admits that “there is a certain awkwardness in a lame-duck session. But these are big and important issues. …” Perhaps it is the opening words of the Constitution are the cause of that “certain awkwardness.”

“We the People” speak with our votes and already have spoken out resoundingly against this energy agenda. If those who support cap-and-trade are voted out of office, Mr. Lieberman and his colleagues should respect that message.

Read more at the Washington Times

The Obama-Pelosi Lame Duck Strategy: Push through union ‘card-check,’ cap and trade, and more

America’s Ruling Class – And the Perils of Revolution

It’s widely acknowledged that in 2010, the Democrats are on the ropes. But just about the same could be said for the Republicans.

A few weeks ago, John Cornyn and John Boehner revealed this election’s GOP platform. In a year of massive unrest, public disgust with government, and large-scale rejection of interventionist policies, the GOP will emphasize…deficits. An issue to warm an economist’s heart — and the occasional accountant’s, too. Top that one, Obama.

In the wake of Scott Brown’s stunning upset in Massachusetts last February, with the entire New England region open to exploitation, the GOP is doing nothing. There are no plans to challenge incumbents in New England. No money, no candidates, no program. Historical moment? Wuzzat mean?

No effort is being made to emphasize the achievements of the nation’s Republican governors. Jan Brewer, Chris Christie, and Mitch Daniels, among others, are steering their states through the worst economy since the Carter ’70s, pressing critical policy changes, and most important, defying Washington while they’re at it. Yet the RNC knows them not.

We will merely allude to Michael Steele’s perennial circus act to look beyond to 2012, where we have one announced candidate, the immortal Mr. Newt Gingrich, whose most recent sojourn is a national tour with the most Rev. Al Sharpton.

It can’t be denied that the GOP is sweeping toward a historic victory, one that may even overshadow the legendary events of 1994, the Salamis of the modern Republican Party (that is, if the current party leadership doesn’t throw the opportunity away at the last minute, a possibility never to be overlooked). But this owes very little to the GOP itself. It is instead due to the efforts of the individual candidates and outside parties, above all the Tea Parties, one of the most remarkable popular upsurges in American history. While the TPs are dead serious and out for blood, the Republican Party is tootling along in low gear, its slogan the soul-stirring “Business as usual!”

Read more at American Thinker

Republicans Need to Make 2010 Elections a Referendum on Liberalism, Not Just Obama

How A GOP November Victory Could Bring Its Death

A Tea Party Manifesto: Take Over The GOP

“If we move in mass, be it ever so circuitously, we shall attain our object; but if we break into squads, everyone pursuing the path he thinks most direct, we become an easy conquest to those who can now barely hold us in check.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

For too long, constitutionalists have been fractured into Independents, Libertarians, and other third parties like the Constitution Party.   By defecting from the Republican party, we left it to the “progressive” RINOs who prefer the “Third Way“, and robbed ourselves of the opportunity to steer the party towards true conservative principles.  No more. 

It’s time for constitutionalists to register Republican and take over the party from within.  Not just by voting in primaries, but by assuming leadership roles and working through the ranks until only true constitutionalists are left.  If we can’t take over a political party, what makes us think we can take back the country?

While the tea party is not a formal political party, local networks across the nation have moved beyond protests and turned to more practical matters of political accountability. Already, particularly in Republican primaries, fed-up Americans are turning out at the polls to vote out the big spenders. They are supporting candidates who have signed the Contract From America, a statement of policy principles generated online by hundreds of thousands of grass-roots activists.

Published in April, the Contract amounts to a tea party “seal of approval.” It demands fiscal policies that limit government, restrain spending, promote market reforms in health care—and oppose ObamaCare, tax hikes and cap-and-trade restrictions that will kill job creation and stunt economic growth. Candidates who have signed the Contract—including Marco Rubio in Florida, Mike Lee in Utah and Tim Scott in South Carolina—have defeated Republican big spenders in primary elections all across the nation.

These young legislative entrepreneurs will shift the balance in the next Congress, bringing with them a more serious, adult commitment to responsible, restrained government.

But let us be clear about one thing: The tea party movement is not seeking a junior partnership with the Republican Party, but a hostile takeover of it.

The American values of individual freedom, fiscal responsibility and limited government bind the ranks of our movement. That makes the tea party better than a political party. It is a growing community that can sustain itself after November, ensuring a better means of holding a new generation of elected officials accountable.

Read more at the Wall Street Journal

Midterms Not Just Toxic for Democrats

Can The Tea Party Deliver On Election Day?

Only seventy?  Somehow I get the feeling they neglected to mention this fact to the voters…

Gateway Pundit reports:

The Socialist Party of America announced in their October 2009 newsletter that 70 Congressional democrats currently belong to their caucus. 

This admission was recently posted on Scribd.com:

American Socialist Voter –
Q: How many members of the U.S. Congress are also members of the DSA?
A: Seventy

Q: How many of the DSA members sit on the Judiciary Committee?
A: Eleven: John Conyers [Chairman of the Judiciary Committee], Tammy Baldwin, Jerrold Nadler, Luis Gutierrez,
Melvin Watt, Maxine Waters, Hank Johnson, Steve Cohen, Barbara Lee, Robert Wexler, Linda Sanchez [there are 23 Democrats on the Judiciary Committee of which eleven, almost half, are now members of the DSA].

Q: Who are these members of 111th Congress?
A: See the listing below

Co-Chairs
Hon. Raúl M. Grijalva (AZ-07)
Hon. Lynn Woolsey (CA-06)

Vice Chairs
Hon. Diane Watson (CA-33)
Hon. Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX-18)
Hon. Mazie Hirono (HI-02)
Hon. Dennis Kucinich (OH-10)

Senate Members
Hon. Bernie Sanders (VT)

House Members
Hon. Neil Abercrombie (HI-01)
Hon. Tammy Baldwin (WI-02)
Hon. Xavier Becerra (CA-31)
Hon. Madeleine Bordallo (GU-AL)
Hon. Robert Brady (PA-01)
Hon. Corrine Brown (FL-03)
Hon. Michael Capuano (MA-08)
Hon. André Carson (IN-07)
Hon. Donna Christensen (VI-AL)
Hon. Yvette Clarke (NY-11)
Hon. William “Lacy” Clay (MO-01)
Hon. Emanuel Cleaver (MO-05)
Hon. Steve Cohen (TN-09)
Hon. John Conyers (MI-14)
Hon. Elijah Cummings (MD-07)
Hon. Danny Davis (IL-07)
Hon. Peter DeFazio (OR-04)
Hon. Rosa DeLauro (CT-03)
Rep. Donna F. Edwards (MD-04)
Hon. Keith Ellison (MN-05)
Hon. Sam Farr (CA-17)
Hon. Chaka Fattah (PA-02)
Hon. Bob Filner (CA-51)
Hon. Barney Frank (MA-04)
Hon. Marcia L. Fudge (OH-11)
Hon. Alan Grayson (FL-08)
Hon. Luis Gutierrez (IL-04)
Hon. John Hall (NY-19)
Hon. Phil Hare (IL-17)
Hon. Maurice Hinchey (NY-22)
Hon. Michael Honda (CA-15)
Hon. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (IL-02)
Hon. Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30)
Hon. Hank Johnson (GA-04)
Hon. Marcy Kaptur (OH-09)
Hon. Carolyn Kilpatrick (MI-13)
Hon. Barbara Lee (CA-09)
Hon. John Lewis (GA-05)
Hon. David Loebsack (IA-02)
Hon. Ben R. Lujan (NM-3)
Hon. Carolyn Maloney (NY-14)
Hon. Ed Markey (MA-07)
Hon. Jim McDermott (WA-07)
Hon. James McGovern (MA-03)
Hon. George Miller (CA-07)
Hon. Gwen Moore (WI-04)
Hon. Jerrold Nadler (NY-08)
Hon. Eleanor Holmes-Norton (DC-AL)
Hon. John Olver (MA-01)
Hon. Ed Pastor (AZ-04)
Hon. Donald Payne (NJ-10)
Hon. Chellie Pingree (ME-01)
Hon. Charles Rangel (NY-15)
Hon. Laura Richardson (CA-37)
Hon. Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34)
Hon. Bobby Rush (IL-01)
Hon. Linda Sánchez (CA-47)
Hon. Jan Schakowsky (IL-09)
Hon. José Serrano (NY-16)
Hon. Louise Slaughter (NY-28)
Hon. Pete Stark (CA-13)
Hon. Bennie Thompson (MS-02)
Hon. John Tierney (MA-06)
Hon. Nydia Velazquez (NY-12)
Hon. Maxine Waters (CA-35)
Hon. Mel Watt (NC-12)
Hon. Henry Waxman (CA-30)
Hon. Peter Welch (VT-AL)
Hon. Robert Wexler (FL-19)

If your “honorable” representative is on this list, I recommend you immediately google their opponent in the next election, make a donation and get involved in taking back congress from avowed socialists! 

American Thinker observes:

That’s 70 out of 255 Democrats in the House who are avowed socialists. You also wonder how many are still in the closet.

Again, we see the cowardice of these people. If they really had courage, they would run as both Democrats and socialists and be proud of it.

If the RNC were smart – and they’re not – they would make an effort to get the facts about these anti-free market congressmen known far and wide. And what these Democrats have signed on to by being members of the Socialist Party of America is quite plain.

From the Preamble of the SPA:

We are socialists because we reject an international economic order sustained by private profit, alienated labor, race and gender discrimination, environmental destruction, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo.

We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane international social order based both on democratic planning and market mechanisms to achieve equitable distribution of resources,meaningful work, a healthy environment, sustainable growth, gender and racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships.

Note that some of what they stand for is boilerplate from both Democrats and Republicans. It is their “vision” of a “humane social order” that is based on the “equitable distribution of resources” among other nonsense that sets the socialists apart from rational people.

An examination of that list would tell you that the overwhelming majority of those Democrats are from extremely safe districts so its not like a revelation like this would mean their political careers are over. But it is still shocking to know that 20 years after the fall of Communism, so many lawmakers would still be enamored of such a spectacularly failed economic and social system.

What Obama means by the word “democracy”

Won’t protect our borders. Won’t protect our electrical grid. Building a mosque at Ground Zero. The Ruling Class has not only forgotten 9/11…they’re setting us up for another one.

The U.S. Senate has dropped a House-approved plan that would prepare the United States to defend itself from an attack from any electromagnetic pulse source – whether it would be from a natural solar flare or the detonation of a space-located nuclear weapon by enemies intent on destroying America’s infrastructure, according to a representative who has raised alarms over EMP.

U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., said it is “unfortunate.”

“While one part of the federal government was warning us of possible solar electromagnetic-pulse damage to our electric grid, a key Senate commission approved a bill to ignore this threat,” he said.

“It’s particularly ironic since the Senate amended a bill, H.R. 5026, approved unanimously by the House that would specifically protect the grid against solar EMP and other physical threats,” he said.

WND has reported for years on the devastating danger from an EMP attack that could be launched by a second-rate missile system against America.

The concern is that any nuclear detonation that could be launched into the atmosphere anywhere from 25 to 250 miles above the United States could decimate the nation’s electric grid, essentially transporting it instantly back to an era of mechanical machines and agriculture.

Read more at World Net Daily

Is your family prepared for an emergency?

We will not be taken for granted as anyone’s guaranteed “voting block.” We are loyal to no party – only the constitution and founding principles. Ignore us at your peril!

With [less than] 100 days until the election of 2010 takes place, the one thing that’s clear is the anti-incumbent fervor the runs across the entire political spectrum. Yes, Democrats will feel the brunt of this voter unrest — the party in power almost always loses seats in Congress in midterm election years like this one.

But this year is likely to be different. As incumbents in both parties may discover, they are in trouble this November.

One problem the GOP has is the GOP. The brand is still badly damaged by voters’ memories of George W. Bush and hampered further by low ratings of congressional Republicans today. The Tea Party brings energy to Republicans but no clear leader or message has emerged to win over independent and swing voters. And divisions persist between the Tea Party and the Republican Party establishment.

By all rights this should be a terrible year for Democrats and could end up that way still, but with 100 days to go the Republicans could still kick this one away.

For all the problems voters have with Democrats right now, they don’t have much love for Republicans either. I think there is a very good chance that by November several Republican incumbents will be in deep trouble. If Democrats were to lose 30 seats in Congress and Republicans lost 12 seats, for example, yes it would be a bad year for Democrats but not nearly the year Republicans hope for.

At this point I think it could go either way. We could be looking at Democrats on the verge of losing the House of Representatives, or watching Republicans squander the opportunity of a decade.

Read More at Fox News

Republicans on Track to Snatch Defeat from Jaws of Victory

Have the Republicans Learned Their Lesson?

Tea Parties and the Future of Liberty

Is the Republican party ready to regain power? Probably not — we have seen that how Republicans behave in the minority, especially under a Democratic president, is no predictor of how they will act in the majority. As steadfast as they have been against President Obama, relatively few Republicans who voted for the TARP bailout, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, or our exercise in Mesopotamian nation-building have repented.

Yet it is a risk conservatives have no choice but to take. Hamstrung Democrats can paradoxically be better at stifling government growth than liberated Republicans, but ineffectual Democratic majorities are like dams: the odds of anything getting through are small, but the result of any breach is catastrophic. The Blue Dogs’ sense of self-preservation failed them on the stimulus and health care, both of which cry out for repeal, with cap and trade lurking not far behind.

Politically, Republicans are probably better off winning enough seats to effectively check Obama without giving him a Gingrich figure to demonize in 2012. The GOP excels at this role. Unfortunately, the country needs more than gridlock — it needs Republicans to make serious in-roads in the opposite direction. 

Read more at American Spectator

Is It Enough for the GOP To Just Say No?

What Is the Endgame for Conservatives?

Tea Parties and the Future of Liberty

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn made it official: Illinois will have a special Senate election just for the lame duck session.  Thus Illinois joins Delaware and West Virginia (both having special elections) as the three states whose winners on election day will—barring a disputed election result—be seated for a lame duck session in December.  A fourth, Colorado, is less clear but may also be in play.

The lame duck session looks increasingly likely—and increasingly ambitious.  Sen. Kerry continues to stress that cap-and-trade will be on the agenda, and Sen. Harry Reid (who may be a lame duck himself after Election Day) confirmed it to the Netroots Nation audience, saying: “We’re going to have to have a lame-duck session, so we’re not giving up.”

Along with cap-and-trade, a lame duck will likely consider the recommendations of Obama’s deficit commission — a package that will include enormous tax hikes and could draw the support of some departing Republicans like Judd Gregg of New Hampshire George Voinovich of Ohio, and Robert Bennett of Utah.

And organized labor, seeing the lame duck as their last chance for a legislative return on their political investments for years, will also demand lame duck action.

While Sen. Tom Harkin is still promising some version of card check, more likely is Sen. Bob Casey’s proposed union pension bailout, S. 3157, which would relieve unions of their pension obligations – with a potential price tag for taxpayers in the hundreds of billions.  Democratic Whip Dick Durbin signed on as a co-sponsor yesterday, indicating this bill is a top priority.

The winners in Delaware, Illinois, and West Virginia could be the vital deciding votes on these major policy issues.

Read more at Big Government

The Obama-Pelosi Lame Duck Strategy: Push through union ‘card-check,’ cap and trade, and more

The president’s approval ratings are low, and Congressional Democrats’ are even worse. Members of the president’s party are not only running away from him in swing districts, but even in some relatively safe ones. Many analysts are suggesting that control of the House of Representatives is in play, and perhaps even that of the Senate.

This dissatisfaction flows directly from the president’s policies and those of his party. It is not simply “anti-incumbent,” as many of my press colleagues would have it. This voter outrage—and it is outrage, not hate—is specific and focused: Americans are fed up with big government and deeply concerned about the long-term economic health of their country. The stimulus was unpopular, and most Americans do not believe it’s working. Obama’s health care plan was unpopular when it passed. The American people understood the rather obvious point that it wouldn’t be possible to cover 30 million additional people, improve the care of those with insurance, and save taxpayers money, all at the same time.

Does all of this add up to big Republican gains in November? Not according to the mainstream media. The Boston Globe’s Susan Milligan recently wrote: “The Tea Party movement is energizing elements of the Republican Party and fanning an anti-Washington fervor, but the biggest beneficiaries in the mid-term elections, pollsters and political analysts say, could be the main target of their anger: Democrats.” CBS News reported the same thing just a few days later. What nonsense! I think there is little question that the Tea Parties—and the enthusiasm and energy they bring—will contribute to major Republican gains in November.

Read more at Imprimis

Is It Enough for the GOP To Just Say No?

What Is the Endgame for Conservatives?

Warning for Republicans: Don’t underestimate Barack Obama

That’s right!   They’re admitting that they’re vulnerable and plan to step up their efforts to keep Democrat Kurt Schrader in Oregon’s 5th Congressional district. 

His opponent is Scott Bruun, a true patriot.  Help Bruun take back Washington!

Democrats added another 20 House seats to their list of targeted districts, officials confirmed Tuesday evening, raising the party’s commitment in television advertising for the final weeks of the campaign to more than $49 million.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reserved a third wave of television time, one week after announcing the selection of the first two waves that identified 40 of the most vulnerable seats in the midterm elections. The latest cluster of districts includes 14 open seats, a sign that Democrats intend to expand their sights – to a degree, at least – beyond a strict defensive match.

The districts, which stretch from Arkansas to West Virginia, include five seats currently held by Republicans. It was unclear how much advertising time was being reserved in those Republican seats and whether it signaled a real commitment or a political head fake, with Democrats hoping to entice their rivals into also investing there.

The decisions, which were confirmed by party strategists on Tuesday evening, bring even more clarity to the battlefield on which the two parties will fight for control of Congress over the next three months as Republicans work to reclaim the majority.

The latest wave of races include these Congressional districts: Ark.-1, Ark.-2, Delaware-at large, Fla.-25, Hawaii-1, Ill.-10, Ind.-08, La.-2, Mass.-10, Md.-1, Mich.-1, N.H.-1, N.H.-2, Ore.-5, Pa.-7, Pa. 15, Tenn.-8, Wash.-3, Wis.-7, W.Va..-1.

In the coming weeks, Democrats intend to announce at least one more set of districts.

Read more at the New York Times

Over the past year, the Democrats fixed on what they thought was a devastating four-word slogan to defeat Republicans in 2010: “The Party of No.” Unlike many campaign slogans, it was fair enough. After all, the Republicans had opposed almost unanimously all of President Obama’s major bills (socialized health care, stimulus, nationalization of GM and Chrysler, “cap and trade,” financial overregulation, multitrillion-dollar yearly deficits, tax increases, etc.)

But the Democrats seem to have stopped using that phrase in the past several weeks as, apparently, White House strategists have come to appreciate that the only people screaming “no” louder than the Grand Old Party are the American people. (The president is now opposed by more than 60 percent of independents, 60 percent of whites, almost 40 percent of Hispanics and a full 19 percent of registered Democrats — all historic worst numbers for the president.)

Instead, for the past few weeks, the president has been publicly testing a new message: Remember, you would not only be voting against Democrats in November, you would be voting for Republicans.

In other words, the public seems to have made the Democrats the issue in this election, and the Democrats would like the election to be a vote on the Republicans. This is a plausible strategy. If Mr. Obama can persuade the public to vote up or down on the Republican Party, it probably would be down. But of course, in midterm elections, the public usually (and seemingly overwhelmingly in 2010) plans to vote up or down (in this case, down) on the president’s party — not the opposition party.

Read more at Real Clear Politics

Here are two big questions hovering over this year’s congressional elections: How radical is the mood out there, and do Republicans have a real chance of taking back control of the U.S. Senate?

And here’s a simple way to track the answer to both: Simply keep an eye on four tea-party amigos chasing Senate seats in the key states of Nevada, Kentucky, Florida and Colorado.

In those four states, candidates with tea-party inclinations and the support of tea-party activists have either won the Republican nomination or, in Colorado and Florida, are making serious runs for it. A couple of those candidates are people who would have been given little chance six months ago of winning a nomination, much less a general election.

In each case, Democrats and some outside analysts think Republicans may be shooting themselves in the foot by nominating candidates who can be painted as extremists with conservative views outside the mainstream, in a year when simply nominating safe, garden-variety Republicans would be good enough to win.

But are these candidates really going to be a drag for Republicans? Or are they canaries in the national coal mine, telling us that the disenchantment, fear and anger that have developed in the wake of the worst economic recession in 75 years are driving voters to seek out-of-the-box candidates and ideas they wouldn’t have embraced before?

Read more at the Wall Street Journal

Democratic House members are so worried about the fall elections they’re leaving Washington on July 30, a full week earlier than normal—and they won’t return until mid-September. Members gulped when National Journal’s Charlie Cook, the Beltway’s leading political handicapper, predicted last month “the House is gone,” meaning a GOP takeover. He thinks Democrats will hold the Senate, but with a significantly reduced majority.

The rush to recess gives Democrats little time to pass any major laws. That’s why there have been signs in recent weeks that party leaders are planning an ambitious, lame-duck session to muscle through bills in December they don’t want to defend before November. Retiring or defeated members of Congress would then be able to vote for sweeping legislation without any fear of voter retaliation.

In the House, Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters last month that for bills like “card check“—the measure to curb secret-ballot union elections—”the lame duck would be the last chance, quite honestly, for the foreseeable future.”

Other lame-duck possibilities?  Senate ratification of the New Start nuclear treaty, a federally mandated universal voter registration system to override state laws, and a budget resolution to lock in increased agency spending.

Then there is pork. A Senate aide told me that “some of the biggest porkers on both sides of the aisle are leaving office this year, and a lame-duck session would be their last hurrah for spending.” Likely suspects include key members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Congress’s “favor factory,” such as Pennsylvania Democrat Arlen Specter and Utah Republican Bob Bennett.

Conservative groups such as FreedomWorks are alarmed at the potential damage, and they are demanding that everyone in Congress pledge not to take up substantive legislation in a post-election session. “Members of Congress are supposed to represent their constituents, not override them like sore losers in a lame-duck session,” Rep. Tom Price, head of the Republican Study Committee, told me.

It’s been almost 30 years since anything remotely contentious was handled in a lame-duck session, but that doesn’t faze Democrats who have jammed through ObamaCare and are determined to bring the financial system under greater federal control.

Read more at the Wall Street Journal

“If you can’t budget, you can’t govern,” Rep. John Spratt Jr., D-S.C., proclaimed in 2006 when the House GOP leadership chose to dispense with passing a budget resolution.

Now that the Dems run the House, Spratt is chairman of its Budget Committee and the April 15 deadline for passing a budget resolution is a niggling detail, easily ignored. House Democrats have decided to not even try to pass a budget resolution before this fiscal year expires on Sept. 30 — and may well delay passage until after the November elections.

As the congressional newspaper The Hill reported Monday, Spratt announced that in lieu of a 2011 budget resolution, the House is likely to pass a “functional equivalent” measure that leaves out inconvenient budget numbers — most notably an annual operating deficit averaging around $1 trillion over the next five to 10 years.

In April, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had assured reporters that her House would pass a real budget resolution. But the far left wants to spend more, while the center left wants modest cuts in spending — or at least not to be tied to the far left’s bills that further increase the national debt.

When in doubt, the default position in Washington — for either party — has been to spend more of other people’s money.

Read more at Townhall.com