Today, Congress returns to finish out the 111th Congress. It marks the end of the Democrat party in DC.

Now that elections are over many people are going to jump straight into analyzing the races, who did what right/wrong and what we can expect from this new House and Senate. There will be plenty of time for that in the next weeks and months, but I want to take a quick time-out to talk about something very close to my heart.

Last weekend at the UCLA-Arizona football game, I had the opportunity as a sponsor to speak to 600 children in the Lift Up America program. For those of you not familiar with LUA, it is a non-profit humanitarian organization that encourages and educates underprivileged youth while providing them opportunities with leading corporations, sports teams, media groups and other non-profits. The whole idea behind LUA is turning these amazing kids into ‘ambassadors of compassion,’ who go back into their neighborhoods and share the things that they have learned with their peers.

The kids were at the game to celebrate their completion of the first level of training, during which they helped clean up city parks, remove graffiti, created a recreation center out of an abandoned building and some of them even returned to school after dropping out. To celebrate their accomplishments, as Ambassadors of Compassion, they were awarded diplomas at pre-game tailgate party and got to run across the field before taking their seats and enjoying the game.

I was personally so encouraged to see so many people going out of their way to help others and it just reinforced in my mind what a great country we live in. After the last few months of political wrangling, I am exhausted from the negativity that surrounds us at election time. I know for some, the result of these elections will bring great joy; for others, dismay. I think we can all agree that regardless of how we lean politically, we can certainly do better as human beings.

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Will the NAACP be celebrating the arrival of two new black faces to the U.S. House of Representatives?

Don’t hold your breath. They certainly will not. These two new black congressmen are Republicans.

There’s a powerful message here that should and must be digested.

We have arrived in post-racial America but establishment blacks – lodged in the political left – refuse to accept it and are doing all they can to get black citizens to refuse to accept it.

The sobering reality is that the black political establishment doesn’t want Dr. King’s dream. They don’t want an America where people are judged by the content of their character. They want an America that is Democrat and left wing and this is what they promote today under the banner of civil rights.

The campaign by the NAACP and leading black journalists – all liberals – to paint the Tea Party movement, the push back against government growth and intrusiveness over the last two years, as motivated by racism is shameful.

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This week, the Senate GOP will have a showdown on Sen. Jim DeMint’s proposal to ban earmarks for two years. Senate GOP Leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell, who apparently missed entirely the point of the elections two weeks ago, is trying to rally his caucus to scuttle the ban. The vote will be by secret ballot, so there is really no telling how the vote may go.

On Friday, Big Journalism Editor Dana Loesch interviewed Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds about the dust-up.

Today, in 1995, the Federal Government began a partial shutdown of non-essential services. While most of the American public barely noticed this, the GOP, unfortunately, quickly blinked. Hopefully, we won’t make the same mistake again.

From The Hill:

Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson (Conn.) angered other high-ranking Democrats on Friday by releasing a leadership election schedule that seemingly seals his own re-election as the first order of business.

Larson, currently the fourth-ranking House Democrat, circulated an official announcement of next Wednesday’s leadership elections in which the post of caucus chairman would be decided first and the party’s only contested election, for minority whip, would be decided last.

Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and James Clyburn (D-S.C.) are vying for whip, and Larson’s plan would preclude either Hoyer or Clyburn from challenging the Connecticut Democrat for caucus chairman if they lost the whip’s race – a scenario that many Democrats, but certainly not Larson, had hoped for.

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Recently I sent the paragraphs that follow here to a Texas journal. The editor, no liberal, responded that it’s the best approach to the issue of illegal immigration that he’s seen for a long while.

My challenge to Big Government readers is this: what solution would you propose that is better–that is, that actually works? It does no good to rail that illegal immigrants should not be rewarded for illegal entry. I agree, but what realistically would you do about it, with a proposal that works? Here are my paragraphs:

Two huge aspects bother Texans most about illegal immigration: one, they knowingly break our law in entering the country and get away with it. Two, they generally or often sponge on free health care–especially in emergency rooms and in birthing–and on free education. But there is no way, none, nada that government officials are going to locate, process, try in court, and then deport and follow-up on most of the 1.7 million illegal immigrants in the state [or 11 million in the country].

So what to do realistically? Establish a screening process that enables pathways to citizenship for many. True, they would be rewarded for illegal entry. But by granting citizenship, requiring the payment of fines, and putting them on taxrolls, we get back some of what they took and they pay their fair share of taxes in the future. Otherwise, they simply remain in the shadows, paying little or nothing and taking much. Our getting half a loaf is better than no loaf.

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For the past year, I have consciously avoided the occasional infighting and circular firing squads that have broken out among various conservative and tea party groups. The fight against the left was simply too important to waste time determining which organization was “more true” to the “movement”. Any young movement was bound to have these dust-ups and, with the November elections approaching, it was generally a good idea for most of us to stay silent.

But, the recent actions by one of these organizations is simply too outrageous to ignore. The Tea Party Patriots are hosting an orientation conference for incoming GOP Congressmen next week. It seems its event conflicts with another orientation conference, sponsored by another group. TPP claims that this competing conference is really being organized by “Washington insiders.” I have no idea if this is true or if it matters, but it is also beside the point.

To ensure incoming Congressmen attend its event. TPP sent out a mass e-mail to its activists, directing them to call the Freshman and urge them to attend its conference. In the email, it included the personal cell phone numbers and email for each new member. This information is now out there, on the internet, forever. Remember, not an office number, but the individual members’ personal information.

This is a terrible violation of trust with these new members, most of whom are supportive of the tea party movement. It is also a breach of their privacy.

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One of the biggest slanders leveled against the Tea Party Movement is that they are “anti-immigrant.” That’s nonsense, and everyone knows it. We Conservatives are not “anti-immigration” — we are anti-ILLEGAL immigration, and for a large number of very good reasons; not the least of which is that it makes fools out of the thousands and millions of honest, hard-working and patient LEGAL immigrants who are playing by the rules and doing the right thing by their new home.

There’s a pretty handy response to the whole “we didn’t cross the border; the border crossed us” nonsense you hear from racist groups like La Raza (The Race!) Once you get the issue away from being for or against immigration, versus being for or against illegal immigration, well… we can win all across the board on that ground.

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You’ve endured a long hard campaign season, weathered vicious attacks from your opponent, on Election Night, you triumphed, and now you will take your seat in the 112th Congress.  Now the real work begins.

While much of your time from now through your swearing in will be filled with thanking supporters, hiring staff, and retiring campaign debt, it is imperative that you devote some time to reflect on what is that brought you to this point.  Why did the voters select you on Election Day; what do they expect from you; and how will you make good on your promises to the American public?

Republicans gained over 60 seats in the House of Representatives this Election Day.  This electoral tsunami is a reflection of how the American public is feeling.  They are tired of President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and their failed liberal agenda.  From Obamacare, to flawed economic stimulus packages, to cap and trade, they’ve had enough.

The voters embraced your candidacies and ultimately cast their ballots for you because they want a real change.  They want principled conservatives who will come to Washington and stand firm on their promise to cut spending, restore fiscal discipline, and actually create an environment that fosters economic growth and job creation.  There are a few bold ideas that Americans endorsed by electing you on November 2nd, which if accomplished will help correct the course of our great nation.

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Our airport security system long ago slipped past farce. It is simply unserious and utterly ridiculous. But, with the adoption of X-ray body scanners, it has moved beyond all reason. We may have to start a “hell no, we’re not traveling on the holidays” movement, to send the message that we aren’t going to take it anymore.

It was only a matter of time before the nutroots at Huffington Post would resort to desperation and utter ridiculousness in their frenzied Bush-bashing; behold, the unintentionally comical headline atop Huffington Post:

Before we go into the nitty gritty, can I just note the delicious irony of a website of repeatedly accused plagiarist like Arianna Huffington – who settled out of court for, what else, plagiarism! – falsely accusing another of plagiarism? Remember this?

Seemingly plagiarizing Larry King transcripts so she could crow about having a Clooney byline. The result was an embarrassing smackdown from an A-list celebrity and loss of credibility.

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From the New York Times:

And as officials frenetically tried to paper over differences among the Group of 20 members with a vaguely worded communiqué to be issued Friday, there was no way to avoid discussion of the fundamental differences of economic strategy. After five largely harmonious meetings in the past two years to deal with the most severe downturn since the Depression, major disputes broke out between Washington and China, Britain, Germany and Brazil.

Each rejected core elements of Mr. Obama’s strategy of stimulating growth before focusing on deficit reduction. Several major nations continued to accuse the Federal Reserve of deliberately devaluing the dollar last week in an effort to put the costs of America’s competitive troubles on trading partners, rather than taking politically tough measures to rein in spending at home.

The result was that Mr. Obama repeatedly found himself on the defensive.

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Lost in the news of the elections is a blockbuster story soon to be swept under the carpet, Politico reports:

“The White House rewrote crucial sections of an Interior Department report to suggest an independent group of scientists and engineers supported a six-month ban on offshore oil drilling, the Interior inspector general says in a new report.

In the wee hours of the morning of May 27, a staff member to White House energy adviser Carol Browner sent two edited versions of the department report’s executive summary back to Interior. The language had been changed to insinuate the seven-member panel of outside experts – who reviewed a draft of various safety recommendations – endorsed the moratorium, according to the IG report obtained by POLITICO.”

In weasel words that even make this Washingtonian of twenty years blush, the Department of the Interior Inspector General writes:

“’The White House edit of the original DOI draft executive summary led to the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer-reviewed by the experts,’ the IG report states, without judgment on whether the change was an intentional attempt to mislead the public.” (emphasis added)

One can certainly “lead to an inference“. But … led to the implication? Oh, right. You are trying not to say “implied“.

This is Exhibit A why law school drill into every first year’s head do not use the passive voice. It obscures meaning, begs questions, and diminishes confidence and credibility in the speaker. You come off as trying to weaselly avoid saying something. Like this guy.

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Marc Theissen recently asked some very important questions about where the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is getting the mountains of cash that it spends on Democrat political campaigns. He finds that it is coming from foreign sources, but the SEIU is refusing to yield to requests for transparency.

If the SEIU is getting the millions of dollars it is spending on Democrats from foreign sources, this should put a major dent in the alarmist claims that Obama has been making about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce supposedly getting its money from outside the country — a charge that was resoundingly refuted. After all, if one of Obama’s biggest left-wing campaign supporters is suffused with foreign cash, why should it be such a big deal if anyone else is?

Sadly, the Old Media will never play up this aspect of Obama’s hypocrisy, but that is another subject.

In any case, Theissen asked the SEIU where its political cash was coming from because federal financial reporting records seemed to prove that it could not have been coming solely from the dues of American union members. Since the SEIU has thousands of members in foreign nations, Theissen wondered how that factored in.

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Despite widespread conservative outrage over Rep. Spencer Bachus’ (R-AL) attack on Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement, and despite Bachus’ long history of support for bigger government, GOP Congressional leaders — in their FIRST action since the election — appear ready to betray the Tea Party movement by handing Bachus chairmanship of the House Financial Services Committee.

As was reported in this space just a couple of days ago, Bachus — who is in a battle for the chairmanship of the House Financial Services Committee with Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) — told the South Shelby (Ala.) Chamber of Commerce that former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement cost the Republican Party control of the U.S. Senate. “The Senate would be Republican today except for states (in which Gov. Palin endorsed candidates) like Christine O’Donnell in Delaware,” Bachus said. “Sarah Palin cost us control of the Senate.” He went on to say that Tea Party candidates did well in U.S. House races, but in the U.S. Senate races, “they didn’t do well at all.”

While Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) spoke out against Bachus’ statements, most business-as-usual GOP Congressional leaders remained silent on the issue.  That left Sarah Palin to defend herself from Bachus’ attacks.  She strongly refuted Bachus’ claims and then cited Bachus’ lengthy record of support for big government — which consists largely of support for government programs like TARP and “Cash for Clunkers,” various schemes to block Americans from accessing online poker websites, and any other big government plans that come down the pike — aptly calling it the “Bachus bigger government agenda.”

Sadly, the me-too establishment Republican Congressional leaders appear ready to embrace the Bachus bigger government agenda over Ed Royce’s principled stands for less government.  Royce, who cast votes in opposition to TARP and “Cash for Clunkers,” would appear to be the natural choice of the two to head a committee so important to the aims of those who voted for Republican candidates this year. Too bad GOP leadership seems to think this election win meant there would be more business as usual, because it does not.  One would have at least expected them to let the ink dry on the election returns before betraying the movement.

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In today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss Tim Geithner’s trip to the G-20 Summit, and Sarah Palin’s battle with the Federal Reserve.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. You can find our iTunes feed at CoffeeandMarkets.com. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Will never weaken dollar to grow US economy: Geithner
Obama Post G20: ‘Instead Of Hitting Home Runs, Sometimes We’re Going To Hit Singles’
Sarah Palin: Fed Plan Is ‘Obama’s Clever Way to Punt the Tough Calls’
Obama’s Clever Way to Punt the Tough Calls: Driving the Dollar Down
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This morning, the Federal Reserve will undertake another round of what it is calling QE2; buying Treasuries, i.e. devaluing the dollar,  in an attempt to pump money into the economy. 3…2…1…poof, money from the land of unicorns and pixie dust just appeared. We don’t believe this will end.