On February 7th, millions of Americans will tune in to watch the Super Bowl. Among the highlights every year are the ads. Major corporations spend millions to produce and air these ads, which can become instant hits. This year, our friends at Focus on the Family are running an ad featuring former Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, quarterback of the University of Florida Gators.

Sadly, the ad is generating quite a lot of controversy. Tebow’s not endorsing a product, just the radical idea that we should celebrate family and the dignity of each human life. This is a very personal issue for Tim Tebow, because in 1987 his mother, Pam, was encouraged by her doctors to abort him. She refused, and today her 22 year-old son is considered one of the greatest athletes in college football history.

The Women’s Media Center is organizing a protest effort to pressure CBS to ban the ad. It won’t surprise you to learn that board members for the Center include Jodie Evans of Code Pink, Gloria Feldt of Planned Parenthood, Gloria Steinem and, of course, Jane Fonda. In trying to silence the story of Pam Tebow’s choice, the pro-abortion movement is proving once again just how anti-choice it really is. And its reaction speaks volumes.

Our children are constantly bombarded with over-sexualized, anti-family, “If it feels good do it” messages from the popular culture. Why is the Left so threatened by one 30-second ad? Because the message is so powerful. It speaks to the core values of our nation’s founding – that all are created equal and endowed by our Creator with the inalienable right to life. And the Left knows it is losing this debate, especially among our nation’s youth. One recent poll found that 58 percent of those aged 18 to 29 believe that abortion is “morally wrong.”

My hat goes off to Focus on the Family for producing this ad, and to Tim and Pam Tebow for having the courage to speak up for the sanctity of life.

While the White House and leftwing activists may be in denial about the results of last week’s special election in Massachusetts, a number of politicians appear to be getting the message. In the immediate aftermath of Scott Brown’s stunning upset victory, the White House was defiant and determined to pass ObamaCare. Having lost their 60-vote supermajority in the Senate, Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi quickly began discussing the available options for muscling their socialized medicine scheme through Congress.

Two plans emerged. One, called the “ping pong” option, would have the House pass the Senate’s bill with no amendments. But two days after Brown’s win, Pelosi said she didn’t have the votes to pass the Senate bill because of major differences. That left Democrats with reconciliation as their last option.

It’s a tricky legislative procedure, but it requires only 51 votes to pass the Senate. Major leftwing groups like SIEU, AARP and MoveOn.org were demanding Democrats move quickly to ram Obamacare through using the reconciliation process. For the past few days, it seemed likely that the Reid and Pelosi would try it.

Conservative groups were quick to sound the alarm, and our efforts are making a difference. Late yesterday evening, Politico reported that at least eight Senate Democrats (including Connecticut Independent Joe Lieberman) had expressed outright opposition or strong reservations to using this trick to pass a bill that nearly 60% of the public opposes. Suddenly, Harry Reid is saying “There is no rush” to pass ObamaCare.

In an ABC interview last night, President Obama said something publicly that he has been saying behind the scenes in Washington for some time, and it explains a lot. Obama told Diane Sawyer, “I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” It’s an odd statement when you think about it. If you are a “really good” president, then you’re guaranteed to get a second term. Let me translate Obama’s statement for you.

The only way a president gets defeated is if he does a lot of things that the American people really don’t like. Things like wildly out-of-control spending, promoting abortion-on-demand, massive cap and trade energy taxes, granting foreign terrorists constitutional rights, socialized medicine, redefining marriage, and takeovers of major industries such as Government Motors.

In Obama’s mind, these are all really good things, and those who object are just too stupid to know what’s good for them. It’s this mentality that explains why Obama continues pushing for his socialized medicine scheme even after the stunning results in Massachusetts last week, and in spite of polls showing that nearly 60% of voters oppose it.

President Obama will deliver his State of the Union address tomorrow night. He may or may not talk about dubious global warming, but a centerpiece of his address will likely be a dubious spending freeze. Many Americans were upset by the spending of the previous administration, but they have been shocked by the out-of-control spending of the Obama Administration. Last year, the Associated Press noted that Barack Obama’s budget “would produce $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade, more than four times the deficits of Republican George W. Bush’s presidency.” (If you are a visual learner, click here.)

Not surprisingly, a number of recent surveys have found that deficit reduction and reduced federal spending are more important to voters than healthcare reform. Obama seems to have gotten that message – sort of. It’s being reported that the president will propose a three-year freeze on some discretionary spending, which will save about $25 billion a year. It’s a start, but let’s put that into perspective.

To begin with, the whole concept of a spending freeze is yet another flip-flop for Obama. As a candidate, Barack Obama repeatedlyopposed the idea of a spending freeze during the presidential debates, saying it was “using a hatchet when you need a scalpel.”

This spending freeze is coming from a president who just racked up a record $1.4 trillion deficit with a failed stimulus spending bill, numerous bailouts and a budget that “increased non-defense spending by 12 percent.” One congressional aide remarked that Obama’s spending freeze is like “going on a diet after winning the pie eating contest.”

Obama’s proposed $25 billion in savings amounts to less than two percent of last year’s record deficit. And it comes just as his liberal allies in Congress are trying to pass a trillion-dollar socialized medicine scheme and yet another $100 billion stimulus plan. Clearly we need to take a hatchet to the federal budget, but Obama is only reluctantly reaching for his scalpel.

Last week, Gallup released the results of a post-Massachusetts election poll on the direction the American people thought Congress should take regarding healthcare “reform.” Two-thirds of Americans want Congress to be doing something other than healthcare “reform,” and 55% believe that the current “reform” legislation should be scrapped completely. Only 32% felt that healthcare reform should be the top priority at this time.

Politically, the administration has three strikes against it in recent weeks, having lost gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia, and the special election in Massachusetts for the Senate seat held by the Kennedy family for over 50 years. One would think the message of these three races was unavoidable: Less partisanship and more common-sense solutions.

But the administration is evidently living in a state of denial. As the president prepares to deliver his State of the Union address to Congress and the nation, the tone reportedly will be combative. Far from learning the lesson of past weeks, all indications suggest that the White House is refusing to moderate its liberal agenda and is digging in for a fight.

In fact, that’s exactly what top Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett said this weekend on “Meet the Press.” Responding to questions about how Obama will react to Scott Brown’s “stunning victory,” Jarrett replied, “He is going to fight for what he’s always been fighting for… We’re not hitting a reset button at all.” If we needed additional confirmation of this strategy, we got it in the news that Obama has brought David Plouffe into the White House. Plouffe was Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, and in spite of his cool demeanor, he is a committed ideologue.

In yesterday’s Washington Post, Plouffe outlined the lessons he’s learned from the Massachusetts election. Plouffe calls for passing healthcare reform legislation “without delay” even though “the short-term politics are bad,” doubling down on the failed stimulus spending bill with “more incentives for green jobs” and appealing to the far Left fringe. He concludes by writing, “Instead of fearing what may happen, let’s prove that … we have the guts to govern. Let’s fight like hell.”

Plouffe and the president want a fight for the heart and soul of America. I’m ready to “fight the good fight” for our values in public policy. Are you ready to rumble?

The signs are unmistakable. Something big is brewing among the death worshippers of radical Islam. As we went into the weekend, U.S. intelligence officials warned that female suicide bombers trained in Yemen may be heading to the U.S.

Late Friday, the United Kingdom raised its terrorist threat level to “severe.” Same in India, where intelligence agencies picked up evidence that Pakistani-based jihadists may use gliders to attack Indian cities. ABC reported that in recent days an unusually large number of people on the U.S. “no-fly” list have been caught trying to board U.S. flights – evidence that our defenses are being probed.

Yesterday, Al-Jazeera TV released another Osama bin Laden audio tape taking credit for the botched Christmas Day bombing and promising that more attacks were on the way. At least one private terror monitoring firm claims that bin Laden used certain phrases in this latest tape that he had previously used as signals to launch pre-planned attacks.

Meanwhile, Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab continues his silence on the advice of the lawyer provided to him by the Obama Administration, courtesy of your tax dollars. Many in the U.S. intelligence community are furious that they have been denied the chance to get vital information as a result of the White House extending constitutional rights to terrorists.

Yesterday, the president proved once again that he may well be his own worst enemy. Obama’s economic policies – tax hikes, bigger government, dramatically more spending, cap and trade, etc. – will make job growth and economic recovery much harder, not easier. Now he’s back to his full-throated rhetorical assaults against American business, and he’s sharpening his class warfare rhetoric.

The president made a surprise announcement yesterday about breaking up big investment banks. Some have described Obama’s plan as “the most far-reaching overhaul of Wall Street since the 1930s.” I realize there is legitimate concern about not repeating the mistakes of a policy based on the idea that some companies are “too big to fail.” But Obama’s comments and his Big Government solutions could have been applauded in Caracas, Havana or Moscow. It’s not surprising that a new poll of investors finds that 77% of them view Obama as “anti-business” and 80% question his ability to handle a financial crisis. (Probably because his record deficits are creating one!)

Obama has made an art form out of attacking “special interests” – banks, oil companies, hedge funds, insurance companies, etc. – industries that are responsible for hundreds of thousands of American jobs. Politically, there is a one-year statute of limitations on blaming the past eight years for everything, so he has to have an enemy. But you are left with the impression that the only employer in America Barack Obama really likes is Big Government.

It’s also ironic that on the very day the president said he “welcomes a fight” with American businesses, the Supreme Court upheld the free speech rights of corporations. Be careful what you wish for, Mr. President. You might get it! But worse than that, his policies will only deepen the recession and further the pain millions of Americans are facing.

Yesterday, President Obama went on the attack against two favorite enemies – corporate greed and Wall Street. Obama stepped up his rhetoric against banks and financial firms, attacking large salaries and bonuses yet again and proposing a new bank fee. The president’s revisionist history regarding the cause of the financial crisis was astonishing. It was matched only by his over-the-top pitchfork populism. Here’s a sample:

“We want our money back, and we’re going to get it.  And that’s why I’m proposing a Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee to be imposed on major financial firms until the American people are fully compensated for the extraordinary assistance they provided to Wall Street.  If these companies are in good enough shape to afford massive bonuses, they are surely in good enough shape to afford paying back every penny to taxpayers.”

The deception is breathtaking! Sure a number of big banks got bailouts, but most have repaid those loans with interest. And those still in debt to Uncle Sam are answering to the “pay czar,” who is capping salaries and bonuses. Most of the money owed to the American people is owed by the unions for the takeover of General Motors and Chrysler. But instead the president wants to pick winners and losers. The winners are his union buddies, and the losers are [the] now-profitable banks.

But if the president is so upset about extravagant pay and bonuses and so committed to protecting the taxpayer, where is his outrage at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? The president is so concerned about the $120 billion shortfall in the TARP program, but Fannie and Freddie have put the taxpayers on the hook for $2 trillion. Meanwhile, the top executives at these government-run outfits are getting $42 million in compensation, with bonuses of $2 million!

I’m pleased to report that 70 conservative members of Congress are demanding that the administration hold executives at Fannie and Freddie to the same standard to which they hold other private firms. But don’t hold your breath. Over the years, Fannie and Freddie executives have been major donors to liberal candidates (with Barack Obama being one of their top beneficiaries), and they have been run by well-connected liberals like Rahm Emanuel and Franklin Raines.

Rather than intimidating and investigating Big Business, we need to stop punishing success, stop picking winners and losers and start investigating Big Government!

Israel is constantly being berated by Third World thugs and leftwing activists. Whenever something terrible happens – outbreaks of disease (including the swine flu), accidents, natural disasters, recessions, etc. – some commentators, usually in the Muslim world, are quick to blame it on “the Jews,” “the Israelis” or some “Zionist conspiracy.” But despite being six and half thousand miles away, Israel got to Haiti first with nearly 200 medical professionals and the only fully functioning hospital. Haitians are reportedly streaming to the Israeli hospital because the word is out that “the best care available is that of the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces).”

By the way, check out this list from CBS News, and note which nations are conspicuously absent in sending aid and supplies.

That’s the view of Rep. John Carter (R-TX), whose district includes Ft. Hood. Rep. Carter is furious that the Pentagon’s nearly 90-page report on the Fort Hood shootings fails to mention the threat of Islamic terrorism. Today’s Washington Post buried an article on the report on page A15. The first reference to religion appeared in the ninth paragraph, which referred to “religious practices … that might lead to violence or self-radicalization,” as if Catholics or Jews might be suspect, too.

In his usually straightforward manner, Ralph Peters, a retired Army intelligence officer, thrashes the report as “gutless and shameful” in a weekend New York Post column. Peters writes: “It’s not about what happened at Fort Hood. It avoids entirely the issue of why it happened. …The Fort Hood massacre didn’t reflect an intelligence failure. The intelligence was there, in gigabytes. This was a leadership failure and an ethical failure, at every level. Nobody wanted to know what Hasan was up to. But you won’t learn that from this play-pretend report.”

Sadly, the political correctness that allowed Major Nidal Hasan to wage jihad at Fort Hood and kill 14 people is still running rampant at the Pentagon. This willful ignorance is just as dangerous as any jihadist, and both must be defeated.