By Gabriella Schwarz (CNN):  President Barack Obama’s chief re-election strategist on Sunday blamed Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the United States’ credit rating on tea party conservatives who made raising the federal debt ceiling a political issue.

“This is essentially a tea party downgrade,” David Axelrod told the CBS program “Face the Nation.” “The tea party brought us to the brink of a default.”

Axelrod, who left the White House earlier this year to focus on Obama’s 2012 campaign, said the country was pushed to the financial brink by some conservative Republicans.

“It was the wrong thing to do to push the country to that point. And it’s something that that should never have happened,” Axelrod said. “That clearly is on the backs of those who were willing to see the country default, those very strident voices in the tea party.”

However, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham pushed back, saying that proposals from members of the tea party movement could have prevented the S&P downgrade.

“If we’d listened to the tea party, we’d have $4 trillion reductions in debt over time and not been downgraded,” the South Carolina senator said on the CBS program. “The tea party hasn’t destroyed Washington; Washington was destroyed before the tea party got there.”

Read more at CNN HERE.

By Herb Titus & William Olson (American Thinker):

In a Constitutional Republic of the sort that we thought we had, the process by which laws are made is at least as important as the laws that are enacted.  Our Constitution prescribes that law-making process in some detail, but those who voted for the “Budget Control Act of 2011” (“BCA 2011”) were wholly unconcerned about trampling upon required constitutional processes on the way to the nirvana of “bi-partisan consensus “to avert a supposed crisis.  At least two titles of the bill now being rushed through Congress are unconstitutional.

First, the “Debt Ceiling Disapproval Process” in BCA 2011 Title III unconstitutionally upends the legislative process.

The Constitution’s Article I, Section 8, Clause 2 vests in Congress the power “to borrow Money on the credit of the United States.”  As two of America’s leading constitutionalists, St. George Tucker and Joseph Story, observed, the power to borrow money is “inseparably connected” with that of “raising a revenue.”  Thus, from the founding of the American republic through 1917, Congress — vested with the power “to lay and collect taxes, duties and imposts,” — kept a tight rein on borrowing, and authorized each individual debt issuance separately.

To provide more flexibility to finance the United States involvement in World War I, Congress established an aggregate limit, or ceiling, on the total amount of bonds that could be issued.  This gave birth to the congressional practice of setting a limit on all federal debt.  While Congress no longer approved each individual debt issuance, it determined the upper limit above which borrowing was not permitted.  Thus, on February 12, 2010, Congress set a debt ceiling of $14.294 trillion, which President Obama signed into law.

However, a different approach was used when BCA 2011 was signed into law on August 2, 2011.  Title III of the Act reads the “Debt Ceiling Disapproval Process.”  Under this title Congress has transferred to the President the power to “determine” that the debt ceiling is too low, and that further borrowing is required to meet existing commitments,” subject only to congressional “disapproval.”  For the first time in American history the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States has been disconnected from the power to raise revenue.  What St. George Tucker and Joseph Story stated were inseparable powers have now by statute been separated.

Under the new process established by this bill, if the President determines, no later than December 31, 2011, that the nation’s debt is within $100 billion of the existing debt limit and that further borrowing is required to meet existing commitments, the debt limit automatically increases.  The President need only to certify to Congress that he has made the required determination.  Once the President acts, the Secretary of the Treasury may borrow $900 billion “subject to the enactment of a joint resolution of disapproval enacted” by Congress.

But this is not all. Title III also provides that if Congress fails to disapprove the debt ceiling increase in the amount of $900 billion, the President may again certify to Congress that he has determined that the debt subject to the new ceiling is within $100 billion and that further borrowing is required to meet existing commitments.  So the Secretary of Treasury is authorized to borrow another $1.2 trillion.  Indeed, the Secretary may borrow even more — up to $1.5 trillion if a proposed balanced budget amendment has been submitted to the states for ratification.  As was true of the first round of ceiling raising and borrowing, the President and Secretary of the Treasury are constrained only by the possibility of a congressional resolution of disapproval which, itself, is subject to veto by the President.

By giving the President the authority to increase the debt ceiling and to determine that borrowing is necessary to meet the nation’s commitments, this bill turns the legislative process on its head.  According to Article I, Section 7, before an act can become a law, it must first be passed as a bill by the House of Representatives and the Senate.  Thus, any action taken to authorize the borrowing of money on the credit of the United States – whether such action is a formal bill or a vote or resolution — must be initiated by Congress and, then, presented to the President for his veto or signature.  This bill creates what it calls a “Debt Ceiling Disapproval Process” whereby the constitutional process is reversed.  Instead of Congress’s initiating the decision to borrow money, the President has the initiative.  Congress is relegated to the role of having to disapprove the President’s decision to lift the debt ceiling and authorize the Secretary of Treasury to do what the Constitution says only Congress may do — borrow money on the credit of the United States.

Instead of constitutional order, in which Congress presents a law authorizing the borrowing of money to the President to sign or veto, the President presents to the Congress his determination that more money is to be borrowed, subject to the acquiescence or veto of Congress.

Second, the joint select committee on deficit reduction provision undermines the constitutionally established bicameral legislative process.

Read more at American Thinker HERE.

By AWR Hawkins (BigGovernment.com):

No one in recent memory has faced the left’s vitriol like Sarah Palin (not even George W. Bush). The over-the-top, asinine attacks she’s received have been so ubiquitous they need not even be relisted here. Just suffice it to say there is a genuine hatred of Palin throughout the MSM, the leadership of the Democrat Party, and the Republican Party establishment.

And don’t be fooled folks: they don’t hate her because of her convictions – although they despise her convictions – rather, they hate her because they can’t control her.

Fortunately, the hatred the left holds for Palin is more than overcome by the love conservatives and right-leaning Independents have for her. They see in her a refreshing image that dares cast certain issues in the prism of right and wrong, just and unjust, American and un-American, etc.

Perhaps as a group, the Tea Party has come closest to receiving the kind of vindictive normally reserved for Palin alone. There’s no doubt they’re hated as she is hated, and equally no doubt that the hatred is a result of the fact that the MSM, the leadership of the Democrat Party, and the Republican Party establishment can’t control them.

For example, during the push to get Tea Partiers to “compromise” (which is political speak for check your convictions at the door) and support Boehner 3.0, an angry John McCain took to the Senate floor and referred to Tea Party conservatives in the House as “hobbits,” Senator Lisa Murkowski , whom Alaskans foolishly elected over Joe Miller last year, referred to them as “absolutists,” and John Kerry, the haughty one, described them as a group “of extremists, who don’t understand the implications even of what they’re doing.”

(I’m not 100% sure, but I think Kerry said similar things about Vietnam combat vets who risked life and limb in a war he was able to extricate himself from via a number of wounds no one can prove he received.)

Anyway, lucid readers see that the MSM, the Democrat Party, and the Republican Party establishment loathe the fact that Tea Partiers continue to stand their ground.

Of course we can’t overlook the fact that there is a fear factor involved here as well. One of the reasons the left hates that which it can’t control is because leftists fear what they don’t dictate. Thus, no matter what they said in order to give an air of confidence during the recent debt ceiling negotiations in the House, the bottom line was that Speaker Boehner had the power to sink Obama’s ship had he locked arms with Tea Party conservatives and stood his ground. (The MSM, the Democrat leadership, and the Republican Party establishment all knew this.)

And all their mockery and dismissive language toward Palin notwithstanding, the left likewise knows that when she and the Tea Party lock arms, no one’s seat is safe during a primary or a general election. (The November 2010 elections proved this beyond the shadow of a doubt.) And Palin knows it too, thus, during the House battle over Boehner 3.0 she sent a message via Facebook in which she encouraged conservatives to stand their ground and warned the squeamish: “Everyone I talk to still believes in contested primaries.”

Read more HERE.

by James Taylor (Forbes):

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.

Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA’s Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models.

“The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show,” Spencer said in a July 26 University of Alabama press release. “There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans.”

In addition to finding that far less heat is being trapped than alarmist computer models have predicted, the NASA satellite data show the atmosphere begins shedding heat into space long before United Nations computer models predicted.

The new findings are extremely important and should dramatically alter the global warming debate.

Scientists on all sides of the global warming debate are in general agreement about how much heat is being directly trapped by human emissions of carbon dioxide (the answer is “not much”). However, the single most important issue in the global warming debate is whether carbon dioxide emissions will indirectly trap far more heat by causing large increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds. Alarmist computer models assume human carbon dioxide emissions indirectly cause substantial increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds (each of which are very effective at trapping heat), but real-world data have long shown that carbon dioxide emissions are not causing as much atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds as the alarmist computer models have predicted.

The new NASA Terra satellite data are consistent with long-term NOAA and NASA data indicating atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds are not increasing in the manner predicted by alarmist computer models. The Terra satellite data also support data collected by NASA’s ERBS satellite showing far more longwave radiation (and thus, heat) escaped into space between 1985 and 1999 than alarmist computer models had predicted. Together, the NASA ERBS and Terra satellite data show that for 25 years and counting, carbon dioxide emissions have directly and indirectly trapped far less heat than alarmist computer models have predicted.

In short, the central premise of alarmist global warming theory is that carbon dioxide emissions should be directly and indirectly trapping a certain amount of heat in the earth’s atmosphere and preventing it from escaping into space. Real-world measurements, however, show far less heat is being trapped in the earth’s atmosphere than the alarmist computer models predict, and far more heat is escaping into space than the alarmist computer models predict.

Read more at Forbes.com HERE.