A Change Of Heart? Not Really.

When I heard Nancy Pelosi this weekend say that Washington liberals share many values with the Tea Party movement, I nearly fell out of my chair. On ABC’s “This Week,” Pelosi said, “We [Washington Democrats] share some of the views of the tea partiers in terms of the role of special interest in Washington, D.C. …And that’s why I’ve fought the special interest, whether it’s on energy, whether it’s on health insurance, whether it’s on pharmaceuticals and the rest.” She went on to suggest that conservatives were “hijacking the good intentions” of Tea Party patriots “who share some of our concerns we have.”

Are there no limits to Pelosi’s duplicity? The Left today is nothing but a loosely cobbled collection of special interest groups and grievance mongers. The only thread that binds them is their disdain for the common sense traditional values that animate the Tea Party movement, pro-family voters and pro-defense conservatives!

But what makes Pelosi’s comments even more laughable is that this is the same Nancy Pelosi who called the town hall protestors “un-American.” This is the same Nancy Pelosi who accused the Tea Party marchers of being Nazi sympathizers because some were carrying signs comparing ObamaCare to fascism. This is the same Nancy Pelosi who said the Tea Parties and town hall protests reminded her of the atmosphere in California during the 1970s that led to riots and violence. This is the same Nancy Pelosi who mocked the Tea Parties as “Astroturf,” suggesting that it was not a real grassroots movement.

But today talking about the Tea Parties makes Nancy all warm and fuzzy inside. The Speaker from San Francisco wants them to believe that she truly understands their values and shares the concerns of the Tea Party Patriots. You know liberals are nervous when they start saying nice things about conservatives. So what’s going on here?

The fact is, Pelosi is trying to co-opt the Tea Party movement. Some liberals hope that they can refocus the populist outrage against Big Government by turning it against Big Business. Watch for the assault on free enterprise to intensify in the days ahead. Radicals will escalate their class warfare rhetoric, hoping to convince good folks that the party of Government Motors, socialized medicine, record deficits and sky-high unemployment is really looking out for the little guy. Don’t let your friends and family members fall for it. Take every opportunity to point out the Left’s socialist instincts. Make sure your friends and family members are registered to vote and fully informed.

Voter Registration Sundays

It is difficult to overemphasize just how critical the upcoming elections are. So much is at stake – out-of-control spending, looming tax hikes, socialized medicine, massive energy taxes, unemployment, etc. While our budget deficit dominates the headlines, America is confronting another growing deficit that threatens our prosperity – our virtue deficit.

President Obama wants to use taxpayer dollars to fund abortions in his so-called “healthcare reform” plan. The meaning of marriage is under attack in the courts. The assault on Judeo-Christian values is real.

I know there are a lot of pastors who receive this daily report. You are in a unique position to influence the debate over our values, and I’m proud to encourage your participation in “Voter Registration Sundays.” Under the direction of Father Frank Pavone, a national coalition of leading pro-life, pro-family organizations is calling on religious leaders to designate four weekends this year – March 14th, May 23rd, July 4th and September 12th – as “Voter Registration Sundays.”

Voter registration has never been easier, yet even among men and women of faith voter participation is not what it should be. And that’s why your leadership is essential. In talking with members of your congregation, ask if they are registered to vote. Use your influence – in person and in the pulpit – to promote good citizenship and active participation in our public policy process. Each state has its own regulations and deadlines. You can learn more at our website or at www.politicalresponsbility.com.

Fighting Back!

A few weeks ago, Congress passed so-called “pay-as-you-go” rules mandating that new spending be paid for either with spending cuts in other programs or tax hikes. It was a pathetic attempt by this administration and Congress to appear fiscally responsible in the wake of record deficits and the failed stimulus bill. Last week, liberal politicians tried to sneak through another $10 billion in “emergency” spending on a variety of programs – from unemployment compensation and rural TV, Medicare payments to transportation projects. The House passed the bill on a voice vote and the Senate was supposed to do the same.

But Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning, a staunch conservative, called the liberals’ bluff, objected to the additional spending and stopped the bill dead in its tracks, turning what was supposed to be an uneventful weekend into a nightmare for many bureaucrats. Thousands of federal workers may be furloughed because of Bunning’s action.

Media and liberal elites are mocking the senator as an “embarrassment to Washington,” but the real embarrassment is Washington’s “business as usual” mentality. Senator Bunning and other fiscal conservatives have suggested that the administration cancel the TARP program or use unspent stimulus funds to pay for these sorts of projects, rather than adding on more debt. Thankfully, Bunning isn’t backing down, saying, “If we can’t find $10 billion somewhere for a bill that everybody in this body supports, we will never pay for anything.” He added, “There are going to be other bills brought to this floor that are not going to be paid for, and I’m going to object every time they do it.” Good for him.

Ending Welfare (Reform) As We Know It

Barack Obama came to the presidency promising to be America’s first post-partisan president. It is, therefore, ironic that one of his signature achievements has been to roll back one of the great bipartisan triumphs of the last two decades, welfare reform. In a Washington Times op-ed today, I examine all of the ways in which Obama’s overspending returns the poor to dependency. You can read my piece here.

Governors Chris Christie (R) of New Jersey and Bob McDonnell (R) of Virginia are both struggling with massive budget deficits. So naturally they are proposing tremendous spending programs on dozens of dubious projects, right? No. Massive tax hikes? No. True to their word, Christie and McDonnell are cutting spending, reducing the size of state government and rolling back regulations.

In Virginia, Gov. Bob McDonnell is dealing with a $2 billion deficit by “eliminating more than 500 jobs over three years, instituting 10 furlough days for state workers and slashing services…” The governor is proposing $730 million in cuts to the state’s education budget over two years and five state parks will be closed. But McDonnell’s budget, which must pass Virginia’s Democrat-controlled state Senate, includes no tax hikes.

To listen to the Left, you’d think Armageddon was upon us. There is great wailing and gnashing of teeth among liberals and Big Government activists in Trenton and Richmond. This will be a good test to see just how serious voters are about smaller government and reining in out-of-control spending.

Last week I suggested that upcoming healthcare summit at the White House was just for show – a play fake to give Obama the appearance of bi-partisanship, but was really intended to set the stage for congressional liberals to “go nuclear” and ram ObamaCare through Congress using budget reconciliation rules. We got some unfortunate evidence validating my concerns yesterday.

More than a dozen Senate Democrats and 119 House Democrats are asking the president not only to use reconciliation, but also to include the most radical ideas, such as the so-called “public option.” Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), the third highest ranking House Democrat, said yesterday, “If you’re not going to do a 60-vote strategy, but instead a 50-plus-one strategy [reconciliation], the public option could very well be part of this package.”

This is a very disturbing development. Here’s why: The public option is a gigantic leap toward socialism and Big Government control over your life. The public option is the vehicle liberals will use to achieve single-payer socialized medicine in America. Barney Frank admits it. The radical Left knows it. And Barack Obama wants it.

President Bush was both loved and loathed for his resoluteness of purpose. But his successor has taken that trait to an entirely new level, to the point that he’s become obstinate in the face of a clear reality.

President Obama, his lieutenants and media allies claim that prevailing public anger is rooted in frustration over a Washington that’s “getting nothing done.” They are wrong. As I explain in my Human Events column today, most of the outrage is the result of a Washington that’s doing too much to push policies that have always failed.  Thank you.

Drop everything! Sit down and take a deep breath. The United Nations yesterday issued a shocking, mind-blowing report declaring for the first time that it has evidence that one of the world’s nastiest governments has been developing a nuclear warhead. The name of rogue regime U.N. nuclear inspectors say has been developing nukes is …wait for it…Iran.

Yes, I know: we’ve known for many years, through reports by Israel and others, that the Mullahs have been working feverishly to develop a nuclear weapon. But an American intelligence assessment concluded in 2007 that Iran’s work on a bomb had been suspended in 2003.

Iran’s nuclear program did not end. The new U.N. report, according to the New York Times, also presented evidence that Iran had tested ways of detonating weapons and had worked extensively to design warheads small enough to fit atop a missile.

The scandal here is that while the entire intelligence community was berated when no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, there won’t be much criticism of its incorrect Iran-nuke assessment. This even though the potential consequences of  failing to identify the nuclear threat of a regime led by a man who thinks of America as “the Great Satan” and vows to “wipe Israel off the map” are much more dire.

No one is certain whether Iran already has a nuclear capability or merely is on the cusp of attaining it. What we can be certain of is that if the U. N. has determined that the Iranians are developing nukes, they are probably already past the point of no return.

Well it didn’t take long. Just a few hours after deranged Joseph Stack flew his plane on a “Kamikaze” attack into an IRS building in Austin, liberals were trying to link the madman to conservatives. The left-wing web site Daily Kos said the incident was a case of Tea Party “anti-government forces” launching their “first 9/11 inspired terrorist attack.” Jonathan Capehart writing in his blog at The Washington Post said Stack’s “alienation” reminded him of “the extreme elements of the Tea Party movement.” Unbelievable! When a jihadist yells radical Muslim slogans while shooting U.S. soldiers, the left tells us it doesn’t have anything to do with Islam. But a deranged tax evader in Texas suddenly morphs into every conservative. Before the day is over they will be blaming Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney!

Here is the dirty secret the Left doesn’t want you to know. Joseph Stack’s “philosophy,” to the extent he had one, was closer to the left-wing drivel at Daily Kos and moveon.org than it is to the patriots who are in the Tea Party movement.

Joseph Stack printed his manifesto on his business web page yesterday as he took off to try to kill IRS employees. In it he rails at the wealthy, GM executives, drug companies and insurance companies. His rhetoric sounded like Obama style populism – heavy on class warfare. At the end of this drivel he attacks capitalism and approvingly quotes Karl Marx: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” That is the same thing Barack Obama said to Joe the Plumber when he assured him he just wanted “to spread the wealth around.” No, Joe Stack wasn’t any conservative – he was a left-wing populist!

I know this news may surprise you, but another Obama appointee is caught in the middle of a brewing controversy. Hard to believe, isn’t it? This weekend, President Obama appointed Rashad Hussain to be the Special Envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which represents 57 Muslim nations.

ABC’s Jake Tapper reported, “Hussain is a devout Muslim and helped inform the speech President Obama gave in Cairo — particularly with the speech’s references to the history of Islam and the Koran, and its general tone.” You may recall that in his Cairo speech, President Obama made a number of shocking statements embracing moral relativism, denying American exceptionalism and suggesting that Islam played a role in America’s founding. But that’s not the controversy.

Hussain is under scrutiny for a 2004 article by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Hussain was initially quoted in the article defending Sami Al-Arian, a radical Muslim professor charged with raising money for terrorist groups. At a 2004 conference hosted by the Muslim Students Association, Hussain allegedly said that al-Arian was the victim of “politically motivated persecutions.” In 2006 al-Arian pled guilty to conspiring to aid the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Hussain admits to attending the conference, but denies defending al-Arian. Conveniently, the quotes were mysteriously scrubbed from the publication’s website in February 2009, but the article’s author stands by her reporting.

Today (February 17, 2010) is the one-year anniversary of President Obama’s signing of the $787 billion stimulus bill, and the administration is putting on a hard sell for the American people. There will be a White House reception today to mark the anniversary. Later this week, Vice President Joe Biden and various cabinet secretaries will fan out across the country to host dozens of rallies touting the stimulus package’s success. Exactly what are they celebrating?

• President Obama told the American people that Congress had to pass the Democrat stimulus bill in order to keep unemployment from rising above 8%. After hundreds of billions of dollars were spent, unemployment hit 10% last year and remains near that figure today. On the most critical measurement of success laid down by the president, the bill is an abject failure. STRIKE ONE!
• In promoting the stimulus, President Obama promised us that the funds would be spent on timely, “shovel ready” projects. In spite of the financial emergency that necessitated the biggest spending bill in American history, if not world history, just one third of the stimulus funds have been spent. So much for “shovel ready.” More than 2.5 million Americans lost their jobs last year, while most of the stimulus money intended to “save or create” jobs went unspent. STRIKE TWO!
• President Obama promised us that the stimulus funds would not be wasted, and he named Vice President Biden “stimulus czar.” We now know hundreds of millions of stimulus dollars were spent to create jobs overseas. We learned that thousands of jobs were created in places that don’t exist. President Obama promised that 90% of the stimulus jobs would be created in the private sector. An analysis by the New York Times found “the data suggests that well over half of the jobs claimed so far have been in the public sector.”But, wait – there’s more. USA Today reports that billions of stimulus dollars are being spent on programs so inefficient or redundant that even Barack Obama wants to cut or eliminate them! Presumably, Joe “the Stimulus Czar” Biden knows the president’s budget priorities. How did you miss that, Joe? STRIKE THREE!

I could go on, but it’s not necessary. While the administration celebrates this colossal failure, the American people know better. Last week, a New York Times/CBS News poll found that six percent of Americans thought the stimulus bill had created jobs. And, no, that’s not a typo – just six in one hundred Americans believe the $787 billion bill did what it was supposed to do.

Instead of doing a victory lap around the country on the taxpayers’ dime, Obama and Biden ought to be apologizing for the biggest boondoggle in history. Instead, they are having a Marie Antoinette moment – while millions of Americans have lost their jobs, Obama is spending their money to create jobs overseas and grow the government. Now he wants to tell us what a great deal this has been!

I know there are some signs of growth and improved economic activity — “green shoots,” as economists like to call them. This is not proof that “Obamanomics” works. No matter how badly Washington wastes your money, our economy remains very vibrant. There are millions of entrepreneurs and hard working men and women who get up every day, go to work and do their best for their families. They invest, they work hard and they succeed in spite of government, not because of it. Sadly, that is a lesson that Washington liberals seem incapable of learning.

While the Obama Administration apparently does not view radical Islamists as a threat, its Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly identified another group as a potential menace to national security: pro-lifers. Last year, a DHS report highlighted pro lifers as a source of possible domestic terrorism. This week we discovered that DHS performed a “threat assessment” on a small group of peaceful pro-life activists in Madison, Wisconsin.

As I write in my Human Events column today, the “threat assessment” merely reflects the views of an administration that regards those willing to stand up for the constitutional right to life as a national security threat. Thank you.

As an illustration of the lengths to which the Obama Administration will go to avoid naming our enemy, two new documents were made public today that outline the administration’s defense and homeland security strategy for the next four years. The two reports contain a total of 236 pages but do not mention words like “Islam,” “Islamic,” or “Islamist” a single time.

These reports come in the wake of a Defense Department review of the Fort Hood Massacre. In that report’s 86 pages, the words “Muslim” and “Islam” do not appear. This even though the alleged killer, U.S Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, had on numerous occasions expressed radical and fervent Islamic views, corresponded with an al Qaeda recruiter and shouted “Allah Akbar” (Allah is great) as he carried out his murderous rampage.

The Obama Administration has chosen instead to use the words “violent extremism” as a catch all phrase for terrorism. But the U.S. is not at war with violent, extremist Baptists or violent, extremist Catholics. We are at war with violent, extremist Muslims who tell us that their faith informs their actions.

The Obama Administration’s see-no-Islam-hear-no-Islam-speak-no-Islam approach to national security puts more American lives in danger. Just as you cannot cure a disease without identifying its source, “violent extremism” will not be stopped until we acknowledge its source, radical Islam.