Palin adviser slams Bachmann strategist Ed Rollins for dissing the ex-governor

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It looks like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann might genuinely be frenemies now.

A day after Ed Rollins, Bachmann’s top political adviser, trashed Palin in a radio interview, a top adviser to the former Alaska governor slammed the longtime GOP strategist and called on the Bachmann camp to retract his statements.

“Beltway political strategist Ed Rollins has a long, long track record of taking high profile jobs and promptly sticking his foot in his mouth,” Michael Glassner, Palin’s chief of staff, said in a statement to Politico’s Ben Smith. “To no one’s surprise he has done it again, while also fueling a contrived narrative about the presidential race by the mainstream media. One would expect that his woodshed moment is coming and that a retraction will be issued soon.”

As The Ticket previously reported, Rollins criticized Palin Tuesday, insisting she’s not as qualified to be president as Bachmann and is a joke candidate.

“Sarah has not been serious over the last couple of years,” Rollins said. “She got the vice presidential thing handed to her. She didn’t go to work in the sense of trying to gain more substance. She gave up her governorship.”

Read More at the Ticket By Holly Bailey, The Ticket

Joe Miller focused on defeating Mitt Romney in 2012

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Tea Party hero Joe Miller says he’s focused on making sure Mitt Romney doesn’t become president.

In an interview with The Daily Caller, Miller, who unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in Alaska in 2010, said his Western Representation PAC hopes to spend at least $500,000 campaigning against Romney, a Republican candidate, in early primary states like New Hampshire.

“It’s about getting the government back to its fundamentals, limiting government and showing that Romney is not embracing that approach,” Miller said of his PAC’s “Stop Romney” campaign.

Miller, who chairs the Western Representation PAC, said he’s not supporting any other GOP candidate.

Miller said Romney has a “big government approach.” The PAC will publicize the former Massachusetts governor’s history of flip-flopping, or as Miller said, “where Romney use to be and where he claims to be today.”

Read More at the Daily Caller by Alex Pappas, The Daily Caller

Boehner Wimps Out on Libya

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The moment would be surreal were it not so reminiscent: An arrogant Democratic president had committed an impeachable offense, lied to the American people, and dared Congress to do anything about it. Incensed congressmen of both parties asked, negotiated, and threatened until they realized they had no alternative but to take action. Then, the Republican leadership stepped in to save their party’s, and their country’s, worst enemy.

This is not a Clinton-era flashback but a rehearsal of this week’s actions in Congress.

Barack Obama’s indiscretion is more serious than a stained dress and a lie under oath during a civil trial. Obama sent an already overstretched American military to take sides in the Libyan civil war, as part of the NATO operation known as Operation Odyssey Dawn. Now, well over 60 days into the fight, the war proceeds with no sign of Congressional approval and a promise of “no let-up.”

By the most liberal reading of the War Powers Resolution, this is illegal. Yet when Congress decided to act, the Republican leadership came to the rescue.

Boehner Saves Barry’s Bacon

A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers opposed the war from the beginning. Congressmen Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul suggested the war called for impeachment. Late last month Kucinich introduced House Concurrent Resolution 51, which would require Obama to remove all U.S. troops from combat in Libya within 15 days of passage.

Read More at Floyd Reports by Ben Johnson , The White House Watch

Scandal Nation

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Despite 15 trillion dollars of debt, we still give priority to sex scandals over economic scandals. Which may explain why we are so deep underwater. Imagine if a politician who grabbed a 100 million dollar pork project for his friends had to spend a week explaining it. That would almost certainly never happen. Not to a Democrat or even a Republican. Spending isn’t salacious. But maybe it should be.

The biggest political scandals are unrelated to a politician’s function. Sometimes sex and money do collide. As is the case with John Edwards. But mostly it’s a chance to play out an old narrative. The sleazy pol, the hypocritical media and the spouse standing by his side.

It is remarkable that we have spent more time and energy talking about whether a politician tweeted a pornographic image of himself, than the obscene 15 trillion debt that this politician, among so many others, saddled us with. But Bill Clinton’s own impulse control problems in his personal life garnered more attention, than in his legislative affairs. Paula Jones has moved on, but America is still suffering from the shortcuts and legislation of the Clinton era.

It’s not that Clinton had any right to turn the White House into his own personal whorehouse, but it was a symptom of a character flaw with much worse legislative consequences. Like bombing Yugoslavia, spending Social Security surpluses and turning Fannie Mae into a mortgage welfare outlet. The consequences of these things are very much with us. Two of them may have sent our economy into a depression and given time they will help destroy us completely.

But there’s no metric for irresponsible legislative behavior by a politician. Only irresponsible sexual behavior. A scandal about Weiner pushing a law that bans personal information about judges from being posted on the internet wouldn’t get very far. But a headline about him abusing Twitter. That’s good as gold. But which is the greater abuse here? Which one endangers the republic more?

Read More at Canada Free Press by Daniel Greenfield, Canada Free Press

 

Elder: Supreme Court to California – ‘Release the Hounds’

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“Today the court affirms what is perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our nation’s history.” So began Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s enraged dissent.

Release up to 46,000 convicted felons, the court recently ordered the state of California. In a 5-4 decision, the court gave California two years to reduce its prison “overcrowding” — or set tens of thousands free. The ACLU, which brought the suit, successfully argued that poor prison conditions violated the prisoners’ rights as a class, not individually, thus the threat of mass premature release.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, in his majority opinion, agreed with the lower court, which said that overcrowding and an undermanned medical staff mean “an inmate in one of California’s prisons needlessly dies every six to seven days.” California houses 143,000 inmates in 33 adult prisons designed for 80,000. The prison conditions, including under-treatment for the mentally ill, wrote Kennedy, “(fall) short of minimum constitutional requirements.”

Where to start with this outrageous decision?

First, elections matter. A Republican president would have seated neither Sonia Sotomayor nor Elena Kagan, who together comprised two-fifths of the majority. President Barack I-look-for-justices-with-empathy Obama filled two liberal vacancies with two liberal justices. Given that the major Republican presidential candidates promised to seat justices in the mold of Chief Justice John Roberts or Justice Sam Alito, this decision would have gone 6-3 the other way.

Read More at GOPUSA

 

Don’t Like ObamaCare? Stay Poor

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Some of us have long argued the Obama administration is pushing a two-track system of financial bondage for the nation: tremendous profits and options for the ruling class, with cradle-to-grave socialism for the penniless underclass. In between, the middle class will be squeezed into non-existence.

Enter Neal Kumar Katyal, the acting Solicitor General and former assistant to Elena Kagan. Katyal told the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati on Wednesday that there is a simple way to avoid being forced to purchase individual health care insurance or being penalized for failing to do so: make less money.

The federal government is being sued by the Thomas More Law Center to prevent the implementation of ObamaCare. (You can listen to the oral arguments here.) Judge Jeffrey Sutton, who was appointed by George W. Bush, asked Katyal how the government could justify forcing people to purchase any good or service. Katyal stated Congress had this authority under the “necessary and proper” clause and the Commerce Clause.

Judge James Graham, who is part of the three-judge panel, said, “I’m having difficulty seeing how there is any limit to the power [of Congress under the Commerce Clause] as you’re defining it.”

Sutton said, correctly, that current law allows someone to avoid onerous government regulations by going out of business. However, Obama’s health care plan would force people to participate in commerce, then regulate those decisions.

Read More at Floyd Reports By Ben Johnson, the White House Watch

Kagan Assigned DOJ Lawyer Who Argued Obamacare Cases In Appeals Courts

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On Wednesday, Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal did what his job called for: He traveled to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, located in Cincinnati, Ohio, and defended President Barack Obama’s health-care-reform law against a challenge that had been filed by the Thomas More Law Center.

The challenge claims Obamacare’s individual mandate is unconstitutional.

Back on May 10, Katyal also argued for the administration in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Va., against challenges to the constitutionality of the health-care law. There the suit had been brought by the state of Virginia and Liberty University.

Katyal has also signed multiple briefs and legal documents that the administration has filed in various federal courts in defense of the constitutionality of the health-care law.

What makes this noteworthy is that in defending the administration’s position on the constitutionality of President Obama’s health-care law, Katyal is not only doing his job, he is also doing something he was first assigned to do in early 2010 by then-Solicitor General Elena Kagan.

Read More at CNS News By Terence P. Jeffrey, CNSNews.com

Primetime Propaganda

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Ben Shapiro has a new book out, called  Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV.  It chronicles the very deliberate insertion of leftist thought into television programming, and leaves no doubt this is far more than simply a case of people with similar world-views allowing their biases to seep unconsciously into their work.

Shapiro took an interesting approach to preparing his book: he arranged interviews with Hollywood liberals and politely asked them about their biases, while wearing his Harvard Law baseball cap.  They assumed he was a friendly liberal interviewer and let it all hang out.  (Sorry, I haven’t made an Anthony Weiner joke yet today, and that just bubbled out of me.)

The flavor of the resulting interviews is captured in a few videos created to promote the book.  Here’s a little pinch of hatred from George Schlatter, creator of the biggest comedy of the 60s, Laugh-In:

And here’s a primer in hidden-agenda programming from Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry:

Conservatives often wonder how even the lowest-information voter could believe some of the colossally silly things they believe.  It’s not that mysterious.  They believe those things because they have been programmed to believe them, or at least reject alternative ideas with knee-jerk reflexes.  Primetime Propaganda offers a series of frank interviews with the people who wrote the cultural operating system for American decline.

Read at Human Events by John Hayward, Human Events

 

Former U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller brings grassroots PAC to Fairbanks

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Joe Miller told supporters there is no truth to rumors that he’s living in either Nevada or Arizona or Wasilla during a launch barbecue Friday at Pioneer Park for his new political action committee.

Although he works for another PAC with a Nevada address, he and his family have been living in Fairbanks, he said.

His new political group, Restoring Liberty Alaska, will work to support his limited government platform in Alaska.

“We’re going to restrain activist judges, and we’re going to get good people elected,” he said.

One politician he said needs more help in Juneau is Sen. John Coghill, who also spoke at the barbecue.

Read More at newsminer.com

Pro-Abortion Obama Judge Pick Goodwin Liu Withdraws Nomination

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Following a Senate vote upholding the filibuster Republicans mounted against the nomination of pro-abortion activist Goodwin Liu for a federal appeals court position, Liu has submitted a letter to President Barack Obama withdrawing his nomination.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Liu’s nomination for the federal appeals court in the western United States in April on a 10-8 party line vote. Last week, the Senate voted 52-43 against stopping the Republican filibuster with Republican senators Lindsay Graham, Dick Lugar, John McCain, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and Scott Brown all voting to stop the nomination from moving forward. Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska joined them while “pro-life Democrats” Bob Casey and Joe Manchin voted to allow the nomination of the abortion activist to move ahead.

Lisa Murkowski, a pro-abortion Republican, was the lone GOP vote for ending the filibuster.

“In light of last week’s unsuccessful cloture vote … I respectfully ask that you withdraw my nomination from further consideration by the United States Senate,” Liu wrote to Obama in his letter, according to Politico. “With no possibility of an up-or-down vote on the horizon, my family and I have decided that it is time for us to regain the ability to make plans for the future.”

“In addition, the Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit has noted the ‘desperate need for judges’ to fill current vacancies, and it is now clear that continuing my nomination will not address that need any time soon,” he said.

Read More at Life News by Steven Ertelt, Life News