We saw their fury throughout 2009:  “Capitalism is Dead”, “Kill the Corporation”, “Bust Up Big Banks”, “Greed Kills”, “Bank of America, Bad for America”.  The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) led an all-out assault on Wall Street – and on capitalism and corporations – coining words and phrases that have since become common staples in the vocabulary of the bank-bashing craze.  That fury hit a fever pitch last March when word of the AIG bonuses went public.  It was the SEIU out in front of the protests, at AIG offices, and bussing protestors to the homes of AIG executives.

The months that followed saw more of the same.  In April, SEIU hailed the ousting of General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner.  That same week, it stepped up its battleplan with the Mother of all Corporate Campaigns against Ken Lewis, Bank of America CEO and Chairman – complete with videos, rolling billboards, smear sites, petition drives, letter campaigns, media blitzes and more, while it placed equal attention on Bank of America, forcing the company to respond with a $40 million image boosting campaign of television and print ads.

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They wish he was never born.

Heartless progressive women’s groups don’t want Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow to speak. They don’t want him to tell his story. They wish he was never born.

The Women’s Media Center and over 30 other liberal and women’s advocacy groups sent a letter to CBS urging the channel not to air a Super Bowl ad about Tim Tebow’s birth. The Heisman Trophy winner and Focus on the Family will air an ad during the game on Tim’s story.

Tim Tebow was born on August 14, 1987 in the Philippines to Bob and Pam Tebow, who were serving as Christian missionaries at the time. While pregnant Pam suffered a life-threatening infection with a pathogenic amoeba. Because of the drugs used to rouse her from a coma and to treat her dysentery, the fetus experienced a severe placental abruption. Doctors expected a stillbirth and recommended an abortion to protect her life. Pam carried Timothy to term, and both survived- via Wikipedia.

Now Tim Tebow wants to tell his story. He wants to air an ad at the Super Bowl. Earlier this week he responded to the attacks by progressives:

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This morning after our weekly conference meeting I joined other House Republican leaders at a press event to discuss President Obama’s State of the Union address tonight.  What I told the press gathered in the U.S. Capitol this morning is that tonight, President Obama needs to prove he’s listening to the American people.  It’s not the message, it’s his job-killing policies.  The President must do more than rhetorically ‘pivot.’  He must scrap his job-killing agenda and work in the bipartisan way he promised during the campaign.

The American people don’t want this government takeover of health care, and it’s time to put it out of its misery. No more tricks.  Instead of just a half-baked spending freeze, how about real budget caps that can be enforced?  And instead of more government ‘stimulus’ bills, we need real solutions to help small businesses create jobs.

Last Friday, on a visit to my home state of Ohio, the President complained about this “buzzsaw” of opposition his health care bill faced.  But what you call a buzzsaw, Mr. President, I call the American people.  They’re saying ‘enough is enough’ to this big-government, job-killing agenda.  And they’re asking “where are the jobs?”  So we’re going to listen to the President, but we’re also going to continue to hold him accountable and offer our better solutions.

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Wow, this is beyond the pale. Andy Stern has called two Senators “terrorists” for not going along with the plan to socialize the nation’s medical system. Analysis from TheTruthAboutEFCA.com:

You probably thought it was outrageous that SEIU president Andy Stern has persecuted his own members and driven away large chunks of his own organization.

You probably thought it was incredible that he dropped tens of millions of dollars on politics after leading a split in labor because the other federation was spending too much on politics.

You probably thought it was horrifying to hear how SEIU badgers — almost terrorizes — companies that don’t cave into the union’s card check demands.

Even with all that, you’ll probably still manage to be shocked that Stern has criticized Sen. Joe Lieberman and Sen. Ben Nelson for halting disastrous health care legislation by saying, “There are a lot of terrorists in the Senate who think we are supposed to negotiate with them when they have their particular needs that they want met.”

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President Obama’s advisers assure us that he will use his State of the Union address tonight to deal with our nation’s ailing economy. Americans have already begun to hear talk of a “hard pivot” at the White House, away from health care and towards jobs.

Yet in economic terms, the president’s shift thus far has been more of the same: more government control and less individual freedom.

His attacks on banks—including a new tax that will invariably be passed on to consumers—caused stocks to plummet last week. He has targeted some banks for being “too big,” but without ending the costly policy of “too big to fail,” which removes the discipline of risk and reward. He crowed, “We want our money back,” but wants to use “our” money for his own spending programs, not for tax relief.

The central idea of the President’s new plan appears to be shaping up as a jobs program, in imitation of FDR’s public employment programs during the Great Depression, and funded by new taxes on Wall Street.

The plan is not about job creation—more jobs could be created by the private sector—nor is it about recouping the bailout. It is primarily about redistribution—and is based on old, bad ideas.
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Once Scott Brown took away the Democrat majority in the Senate by becoming the Republican’s 41st vote based in large part on the fact that Massachusetts voters were unhappy with Obamacare, one would think that President Obama and the Democrat Party would learn a vital lesson. A look at a dozen or so stories across the media over the last few days shows that the Democrats have indeed learned a lesson from Scott Brown’s victory. But is it the right lesson?

Did they learn that they’d better slow down their freight train of extremely left leaning policies? Did they learn that with 58% of Americans standing in opposition to Obamcare they’d better reassess their direction? Have they learned from an entire year of raucous healthcare townhalls, multiple loses at the polls, and tea party protests that brought out over a million people that they might be agitating the American people?

Nope.

Looks like the lesson they’ve learned is that they have to pass their bad policies faster before they really lose power in the November midterm elections. It seems that a certain self-righteous arrogance is what we are seeing from Democrats instead of an acknowledgment that the voters have chastised them in Virginia, New Jersey, and now blue, blue Massachusetts. Democrats have not learned that they’d better listen to the voters but instead have decided that they better move on their agenda even faster. It’s hubris that they’ve assumed not a mien of humbleness.

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Tonight, President Obama delivers his first State of the Union Address. Quaint that we once set aside specific time to ensure the President communicated with the public.

Wait until the facts are in.

Mainstream Media, ACORN, Media Matters (all the supposed defenders of due process and journalistic ethics) are jumping to conclusions over the arrest today of James O’Keefe, with the clear intention to smear and, if possible, convict O’Keefe and his alleged co-conspirators in the court of public opinion in order to taint the “jury of their peers.”

The ACORN story was a huge black eye for the organized left and their allies and cohorts in the mainstream media. So they are relishing every minute of this breaking story, making it their top story – while they ignored the initial ACORN story until they no longer could.

MSNBC and other “news organizations” are even billing this developing story as “Watergate”. What do  Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow know? And when did they know it?

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Now President Obama tells us he’s going to take the economy seriously.  God help us.

As the war on the economic recession grew bleak and the unemployed body count grew, Obama and the Democratic Congress were bogged down in the quagmires of health care reform and cap-and-trade – wars of choice but not of necessity.

Obama and Congressional leaders dithered on the economy to satisfy their liberal base and deliver on campaign promises of a government takeover of health care, a cap-and-trade system and a scheme to eliminate the secret ballot in union elections.

Fortunately for America, Obama and his Congressional allies have been unsuccessful so far.

In a recent interview with ABC News, the president said he lost touch with the American people because he was so focused on crafting policy.  And the result was the special election in Massachusetts that ended in disaster for Democrats.

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Statement from Andrew Breitbart:

“We have no knowledge about or connection to any alleged acts and events involving James O’Keefe at Senator Mary Landrieu’s office.  We only just learned about the alleged incident this afternoon.  We have no information other than what has been reported publicly by the press.  Accordingly, we simply are not in a position to make any further comment.”

From the Associated Press:

A conservative activist who posed as a pimp to target the community-organizing group ACORN and the son of a federal prosecutor were among four people arrested by the FBI and accused of trying to interfere with phones at Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office.

Activist James O’Keefe, 25, was already in Landrieu’s New Orleans office Monday when Robert Flanagan and Joseph Basel, both 24, showed up claiming to be telephone repairmen, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten’s office said Tuesday. Letten says O’Keefe recorded the two with his cell phone.

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Just when I thought that Dede Scozzafava had been vanquished to the outer reaches of the liberal fringes, up pops her specter in Illinois. Poor Illinois. Hasn’t its people suffered enough?

Kirk Dillard is one of a handful making a bid for the governor’s office. He’s a classic RINO, a man who decided to sell his soul and his voters in exchange for political relevancy during the 2008 election by way of joining the peanut gallery in lathering on praise for Obama.

Dillard took his adoration for a man who voted against allowing citizens to conceal carry (fine for retired police officers) and providing medical care for abortion survivors (the infants, not the women) by recording a campaign spot for him.

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Federal budget deficit will reach $1.35 trillion in 2010, and Congress is already planning to borrow billions more to pay for a new jobs bill and another war funding bill

Most TSA employees to receive performance-based pay hikes

Taxpayers spent more than $1.1 million to send members of Congress and their staff on junkets to the Copenhagen Climate Summit in Denmark

More than half of the companies that have received federal stimulus dollars to do highway work in Massachusetts have a history of breaking the law

Monterey wine association receives $98,5000 federal stimulus grant

$2 million of federal stimulus money paying to teach Ohio residents how to cut, color and style hair

Atlantic City spends federal stimulus money to pay for more than $276,000 worth of playground equipment

Nearly three out of four Americans think that at least half of the money spent in the federal stimulus plan has been wasted, according to a new CNN poll

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With much-publicized ties between President Barack Obama,  the SEIU labor union and the ACORN volunteer organization, it would be a safe assumption that someone with a business relationship with not just one, but both of those groups would have an inside track on doing business with an Obama associate.

Credit: Christopher Woodward

But in the world of big money Democratic Chicago politics, there is a difference between white-collar clout and blue-collar clout.

Chicago real estate developer Thomas Bennett thought he had a deal in hand to purchase the old Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) building at 626 West Jackson, just blocks from Union Station. Bennett thought he was paying a fair price for the property as he had a written commitment from two tenants –SEIU and ACORN- to occupy office space in the building.

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He’s also the new Republican governor of Virginia and is taking aim at the commonwealth’s oppressive and inefficient state-owned liquor monopoly. More than a dozen states still completely control the sales and distribution of all distilled spirits.

The result? Higher payrolls for state governments (state-workers are public-sector employees after all) and rotten selection and service for customers (state-sanctioned monopolies tend to diminish the shopping experience).

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The Massachusetts Special Election last week upended “conventional wisdom” about “who can/might/should/ or will win” and how traditional voting blocs may cast their ballots in upcoming elections.  This is not simply a look at “what happened,” but also what it means for the legislative agenda in Washington. In this poll, actual voters provide a roadmap for reform as Washington continues to debate how best to fix the economy, jump-start entrepreneurship, and shore up national security.

Some highlights from the poll:

*       Independent Women Voters: This demographic was key to the electoral outcome. They bucked their gender, with 67% of them supporting Scott Brown.  Majorities say that Congress should stop the current levels of spending and call for enacting provisions that make it more affordable for people to buy health insurance on their own, instead of through their jobs, in the same way people buy homeowners’ and life insurance (56%). Two-thirds of Indie women would allow small businesses to form groups to buy healthcare coverage at lower rates, and 45% want Congress to “start over” on healthcare reform; just 2% say continue with the reform “as is.”

*   Those who had frequently voted for Ted Kennedy in the past (63% of the sample) had some surprising opinions: 79% of them said providing tax cuts to small businesses for job creation will speed up the nation’s economic recovery; 47% say Congress should open healthcare negotiations for the public to observe.

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Drudge is pointing to this damning story to proclaim “TRIPS TO COPENHAGEN COST OVER $1,000,000… ” for Congressional trips across the pond. What did you get for it, other than the joy of sending “106 people from the House and Senate” which included “spouses, a doctor, a protocol expert and even a photographer”? Nothing. No climate deal (thankfully). While you gave the shirt off your back, you didn’t even get this:

The Scott Brown triumph heralds an enormous opportunity for Republicans this fall.  As I posited in Part 2 of this series, The Top 4 Things Congressional Republicans Must Do in 2010, in order to make the most of the 2010 elections, Republicans must run on a defined Agenda for the Fall Elections.  That Agenda needs to be Clear, Practical and Limited.  Here is what I mean:

Clear.  In the wake of the Brown election, the Democrats most certainly will have a messy 2010.  The Pelosi wing of the Democrats, driven in part by Moveon.org, Emily’s List and others, will continue to push their views and legislation on issues like Health Care, Cap and Trade, Taxes, Afghanistan and more.  The Evan Bayh wing of the party, located in swing districts and states and fearful of the message of the Brown election – in order to survive – will have to push back on those Left Wing plans.  At worst, that inter-party warfare will be politically very ugly.   At best it will portray a Democrat Party with no clear vision for the future.  Similar to the fate that befell the warring and splintered Democrat Party in 1968, the Democrat infighting in 2010 will hamstring their election efforts.

That lack of clarity on the Democrats part must be contrasted by a clear governing vision on the part of Republicans.  The beauty of the Contract With America, beyond its content, was that it provided a concise and clear Agenda.  It told the voters exactly what Republicans intended to do if they won.  This Fall, Republicans, in a unified fashion, must do no less than that if they want to take back the House.

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It permeates the public’s consciousness and Big Media obsessively promotes the perception to our detriment.  Yet, like a canker on a suitor, polite Republicans won’t discuss it.  No longer, however, can we pretend the issue doesn’t exist.  It does and, though painful to admit, we must confront the truth.

Republicans have a “hip gap.”

This is not to say Democrats are hip.  People who squander their precious breaths of life poring over Das Kapital, practicing rhythmic chanting with Kindergarten lyrics, chaining themselves to national monuments and/or writing memoirs prior to accomplishing anything are utter stiffs.  They can only pass themselves off as cool in comparison to…well, us.

Oh sure, we’d like to think this is just another slanderous Leftist attack on Republicans.  But, let’s be honest:  a large gaggle of GOPers have yet to put a toenail into the Twenty-First Century’s cultural crosscurrents – or, for that matter, the Nineteenth’s.

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Not…a…damn…thing…more…needs…to…be…said.