Newt Gingrich was a tour de force in tonight’s debate. He took a narrative the media hammered at al day, flipped it, and effectively killed it in the span of five minutes. He received another standing O for his rhetorical display thereby insulating himself from further attacks by the other candidates.

No candidate would repeat John King’s remarks after watching the audience’s reaction. He rode the wave for almost the entire debate. Gingrich has repented for his trangressions; as voters we are trying to decide whether he’s genuine. Some will decide that he is; some will decide he’s not.

Santorum bombed on the SOPA question. Internet piracy is a problem but SOPA is akin to shooting goldfish in a bucket with a shotgun. Santorum argues that there should be protections for IP holders on the Internet and says that SOPA goes too far, but I’m not convinced of his resolve. As my friend Derek Hunter notes, tell that to Napster.

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For the past few weeks, a small group of rag-tag occupiers have set up a shanty town in Keiner Plaza, the site of many St. Louis Tea Party rallies. They have done so without a permit and without insurance — things the city demanded of the St. Louis Tea Party before they were allowed use of the space. Demonstrators plug their laptops and space heaters into the park’s power outlets. Should an accident occur, the lack of insurance will place the city on the hook for liability. Yesterday in an interview with Mayor Slay’s spokesman Jeff Rainford, I learned that the city isn’t exactly keen to bring the group into compliance with the law.

The cost for renting out Keiner Plaza isn’t cheap, though not as expensive as permits for usage of federal park space. A letter to my STLTP Co-Founder Bill Hennessy detailed a list of actionable and monetary requirements before the city would allow an August 4th, 2011 Tea Party event to take place:

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Ten years ago at this exact time I was standing in my pajamas in my living room with tears streaming down my face, my hair a wreck. I was a 21-year-old newlywed and mother. My months-old infant sat in a bouncy seat, fascinated by his fists. My sobs startled him; he jolted in his seat, looked for my face, smiled and cooed, which made me cry harder.

The dichotomy of such innocence in my living room and the terror and evil unfolding on my television broke me in ways that I will never be able to explain. I wept for every single person as though they were cherished members of my own family. I wanted to reach through the television to make it stop, to catch the people jumping and falling with my hands.

As the second tower fell, the realization of what our country faced and what we would have to do as a nation hit me.

I had identified myself as a liberal my entire life, until this day. I had an early midlife crisis when I was around 19 years-old, when I began to think that I didn’t actually believe in the principles with which I was raised. I was raised by a very big southern Democrat union family. I was indoctrinated by years of pop-culture, educational bias, and family mantra. It was the only way. I did not vote for George W. Bush. I supported Gore. Even as I began to shed the beliefs of a Democrat, one thing remained: I still felt that America had a problem with the “military complex.” The only reason people were hostile to us, I surmised, was because they were intimidated by our military. I thought Bush was representative of this and it was the reason I didn’t support him.

That belief was blown to hell on 9/11.

“Thank God George Bush is president,” I blurted out in the middle of a furious sob. My husband, who was born wearing a Reagan shirt, looked at me with wide-eyed wonderment.

How foolish I had been.

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Under-appreciated and priceless.

Norman Rockwell-"Two O'Clock Feeding'

Norman Rockwell-"Freedom from Fear"

Norman Rockwell-"You Can Trust Me, Dad"

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I’ve seen this numerous times from the left but was genuinely shocked to see it occur from the right one of our own, a well-known tea party citizen journalist. Jeremy Segel of Rebel Pundit was asking a few questions of Mourdock at a tea party rally when Mourdock’s campaign manager Jim Holden – who also happens to be Indiana’s Deputy Treasurer and General Counsel – appears to make physical contact with Segel and shoves the camera down before later shouting “douchebag!”

I reached out to the Mourdock camp and spoke with his communications director, Chris Conner. I asked whether or not Mourdock felt Holden’s response was an appropriate action.

“The individual didn’t ID himself and there were other people there doing the same thing,” Conner replied. “We felt like he was being overly aggressive and when it was clear that Richard was going to talk to other supporters, the individual wouldn’t stop.”

Except Segel does identify himself and it’s heard on video at 1:36 in. I’m told he was also wearing a Gadsen Flag hat. I’m not exactly sure how a few calm and polite questions wound up being mischaracterized by Mourdock’s camp as “aggressive,” but judging by the video, the only aggression viewers can see is that from Mourdock’s campaign manager – who as General Counsel, should know the law better than he demonstrated.

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I’ve discussed this topic a lot all across the country, the wave of women, of mothers in political activism.

Why have so many mothers become so active?

Because motherhood is political.

I have two sons. One day they may hear the call of duty and enlist to fight for our liberty. One day they may be called upon to defend America’s shores. They may decide to enter business or take up a trade. They may decide to have families of their own someday. I want them to have every opportunity available to them and I will stand against that which impedes on their rights. It’s instinctual: my job as a mother is to raise up, nurture, and protect my children, to protect their interests, to protect the interests of my family. In a society where my first line of defense, my husband, has been compromised by the self-victimization of the female sex, I’ve volunteered to go to the front lines of this ideological battle and I do it for my children. I’m not the only one.

It’s unconscionable to me that I would protect my children from running out into a busy street but not protect their right to be free. A month after my oldest was born my husband and I spent an entire morning baby-proofing our house: placing plastic covers on all empty wall sockets, installing cabinet latches, covering all the sharp edges of the tables with adhesive cushions. Why wouldn’t I also rise to install barriers against that which harms my children’s future? We armed our children with the knowledge against “stranger danger,” we taught them how to dial 911 in emergencies, we’ve taught them how to properly handle and not handle firearms. Why wouldn’t I teach my children about their fundamental rights as an American? Their right to free speech, to assemble, the freedom of the press, the freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, the freedom of religion? Their right to pursue happiness but not the expectation that they are owed happiness from their fellow man?

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I felt the same as cartoonist Michael Ramirez (and likely many of you) when congress made a spectacle of themselves with their SOTU prom:

I’ve spoken to several legislators who played up to the PR gimmick of reaching across the aisle and choosing “dates.” I’ve watched them giggle about it on the morning talk shows and Tweet each other.

“It’s symbolic,” said Democrats. You know what else is “symbolic?” Bringing the popular health control repeal bill to the senate floor for a vote. So spare me the ridiculously fake bipartisanship.

I asked this question of Rep. Mike Pence (honestly, my motivation was to later softly ridicule his answer if he bought into the faux-unity hype) and received a refreshing answer, a little more than six minutes in.

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Janet Napolitano announced Monday an expansion of the Dpeartment of Homeland Security’s campaign “If You See Something, Say Something” to include hundreds of Walmart stores:

More than 230 Walmart stores nationwide launched the “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign today, with a total of 588 Walmart stores in 27 states joining in the coming weeks. A short video message, available here, will play at select checkout locations to remind shoppers to contact local law enforcement to report suspicious activity.

The program:

The “If You See Something, Say Something” campaign—originally implemented by New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and funded, in part, by $13 million from DHS’ Transit Security Grant Program—is a simple and effective program to engage the public and key frontline employees to identify and report indicators of terrorism, crime and other threats to the proper transportation and law enforcement authorities.

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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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“We had to put the Second Amendment over the First Amendment.” (7:21)

Yes, it’s common sense to credit the NRA for its involvement with the McDonald vs Chicago case and its fight for the Second Amendment, which, I think, would have been infringed upon even greater longer ago without the NRA.

However.

I don’t like what I’m seeing with the NRA on this – and their wish to protect the Second Amendment by way of seeking exemption under DISCLOSE is nullified if they traded exemption for silence on the hearing of an anti-gun Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan as part of of the deal.

You can’t be non-partisan because the Second Amendment, in current society, is not a bipartisan issue.

By silencing yourself, ironically, on an issue for exemption so that you don’t have to be silenced later on is playing with the First Amendment whether you realize it or not.

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We’ve already noted how two HuffPo reporters ran defense for SEIU: First there was Erica Payne, HuffPo blogger, lover of all things Media Matters, who appeared on Fox News to try to shift blame of SEIU antics onto the tea party.

We’ve also read how HuffPo blogger Arthur Delaney was embedded with SEIU to cover their home invasion of Bank of America employee Greg Baer which terrified Baer’s young son who hid in the bathroom (we’re still waiting for the Carnahan Coffin-Gate drama queens to repeat their hysterics over this but so far, nothing); Delaney became the first to parrot SEIU’s baseless accusation of “conflict of interest” at Fortune columnist Nina Easton after she published her firsthand account, as Baer’s neighbor, of the same protest. Monday we exposed Huffington Post’s own conflict of interest when we discovered that SEIU had paid the site $15,000 categorized as “political activities and lobbying.”

Is this what SEIU money is buying? Two HuffPo bloggers running their media defense? Of course, this could be a routine advertising expense. But, Big Government has learned that the Huffington Post has inserted themselves into SEIU’s most notorious violent incident: the Kenneth Gladney beating of last August.

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Certain conspiracies have been winding their way through the more desperate and hungry parts of the blogosphere; various liberals have alleged that I, Andrew Breitbart, and others “lied” about Patricia Redington’s handling of Kenneth Gladney (who still hasn’t received justice) and Kelly Owens’ cases.

This is the problem when one is driven not by intellectual curiosity, but by a pronounced obsessive bitterness, when bloggers’ content is based upon fruits from scavenge and bias, as opposed to actual investigation which requires more skill, demonstrated by 24thState, in a post which requires full reading. This lack of attention to facts was exhibited last week in a hastily-written piece – too hasty to bother confirming the identity of the intended target – on Crooks and Liars. The cogs in the machine each provided cover , a crack in any flank, according to their rulebook, is invalidation of their own. But as for the matter of Gladney and Redington:

They’re wrong, as usual, but then the Soros and SEIU funded Media Matters has never been interested in the truth.  I speak to this because starting that night, August 6th, I’ve been collecting the information on the Gladney case, from public statements to health records to statements from public officials, and just last week, I delivered much of that information to the prosecutor overseeing the case.

Aside from all of this, I’m glad to see, for the first time, real interest in one of the most under-reported hate crimes in America in the past several years. I’m glad that liberals have mustered up enough interest to ask the questions they couldn’t be bothered to ask last fall when they were too busy trying to cover up the crime against a black man. Perhaps they will also ask why it took Redington so long to talk to witnesses, or about this:

The hospital records were not the complete medical records.  Gladney went to his personal doctor, the one paid by coverage through his wife’s insurance (despite a report and non-correction you might have read in the St Louis Post Dispatch).  Pat Redington’s office had no way of knowing this because prior to them bringing charges, they wouldn’t meet with or speak to Kenneth Gladney, or any of the witnesses in the police report.  Thus prior to the charges being brought, Redington’s office couldn’t check the full medical records.  They didn’t know of the existence of the full medical record.

[...]

These medical records were important, because Redington’s failure to press timely charges was excused by the complexity of the case.  And yet, the information the counselor’s office had was no different the day they pressed charges, then it was on August 12th.  In other words, Redington’s claim of dozens of witnesses and multiple arrests was intended to be an excuse.  The truth is there was no, and I repeat this strongly, NO, investigation from the counselor’s office.

Those on the left stated an aversion to name-calling when they decried when conservatives declared certain of the administration’s politics to be socialist, tossing around words like “liar” and “racist” seem to be excepted from their double-standard, even when those against whom they rail have the advantage of possessing information on the story and not just SEIU rhetoric.

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Yesterday was my son’s 9th birthday and for his present, the government jacked his future. As he sat in the floor and happily opened his gifts, Bart Stupak appeared on television and revealed that he’d sold his soul. The joy was sucked from the room, but my son didn’t notice – thank God for innocence. The faces of the adults in the room fell as Stupak held his presser, as Pelosi gained another YES vote for health control.

The scene was an eerie replay for me; eight-and-a-half years ago that same boy sat in his bouncy seat while cooing and kicking his legs as his father and I watched the twin towers crumble to dust on live television. The feeling was the same.

A lot of people ask why I and others do what we do.

The scene I just described is my answer.

Last night the Democrat party died as it drove a spear through the torso of the Constitution and passed legislation that the majority of Americans overwhelmingly opposed. Nancy Pelosi sauntered into the capitol surrounded by fellow socialists, carrying the gavel used in 1965 to pass the now-bankrupt Medicare.

All summer long Americans filled town halls, emailed, called, and faxed their lawmakers, and they were forsaken. They were called Nazis, racists, homophobes; they were threatened, beaten, and called stupid because they disagreed with the minority who feels that the government should run our lives. Our lawmakers unofficially stopped representing us last spring.

Last night, our legislators officially broke the contract with America that is the Constitution. Last night, they ceased to represent us. Last night, a new party was born; the malignant tumor that is the progressive caucus consumed the Democrat party from within and gave birth to the mainstream Socialist Party.

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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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I guess his question as to why she could say, during her debate with Scott Brown, that the “Taliban are gone” in Afghanistan after Taliban blew up eight CIA officers in Afghanistan was too tough for her.

From the Weekly Standard reporter himself:

A tipster tells me that the man who was pushing me outside of a Capitol Hill fundraiser Tuesday night for Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley is Michael Meehan.

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Friday morning Jamie Allman and I interviewed Claire McCaskill who gave further signs of Democrat infighting as she agreed to issue a press release saying that she supports having a broadcasted conference committee on the fauxcare negotiations. She was challenged as to why, whenever on the Sunday morning talk shows or making other media rounds, she had not taken the opportunity to voice dissent against the actions of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to make the deliberations private.

She also acknowledged that the legislation does enforce penalties for Americans who do not choose government-run fauxcare.

McCaskill also singled me out by saying my calling her out on her fauxcare vote (because the majority of Americans and Missourians do not support it and her approval rating is sliding as a result) was “politicizing the issue.” I’d say not making yourself available to your constituents (her staff was nice but callers rarely get through and the senator obviously disregards the polling data) and voting for an unconstitutional bill which abuses the commerce clause for the sake of giving Democrats a win under the guise of providing real reform while not actually providing real reform – is real politicizing.

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Brown’s chances have been speculative as the most recent poll, until today, was one from November which showed Brown trailing Coakley by 58-27 with 15% undecided. That’s changed since Rasmussen released their latest poll which shows Coakley’s lead sputtering:

State Attorney General Martha Coakley holds a nine-point lead over her Republican rival, state Senator Scott Brown, in Massachusetts’ special U.S. Senate election to fill the seat of the late Edward M. Kennedy.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in the state finds Coakley ahead of Brown 50% to 41%. One percent (1%) prefer some other candidate, and seven percent (7%) are undecided.

Validating what we all thought: that Scott Brown can win this race. Especially if you consider:

The health care issue is expected to play a big role in the debate and Massachusetts voters hold modestly favorable attitudes about the proposed legislation. In the Bay State, 53% favor the plan working its way through Congress and 45% oppose it.

However, as is the case nationally, those who feel strongly about the bill are more likely to be opposed. The overall figures include 36% who Strongly Oppose the plan while 27% Strongly Favor it.

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This year saw the birth of the tea party movement, the rise of administrative radicalism, and a suppression of information unlike ever before seen. Were it not for the new penny presses, blogs and the investigative citizens who author them, much of this information would be six feet under. When the media goes state and becomes nothing more than an echo chamber for the government, the task of sharing truth falls to the original keepers of liberty: the American people.

These are the most Underreported Stories of 2009:

1. CLIMATEGATE
Al Gore needs something to sustain him and his big pimpin’ life down at his ginormous, energy-sucking mansion in Tennessee. Thus the green market was born, a made-up market chock full of products like carbon credits and other Willy Wonka (but not as cool) ish items for people to buy as a way to feel good about themselves and their contribution to the planet without having to actually do anything. They don’t need a God! They need a Prius!

Celebrities Botoxed within an inch of their lives began popping up in PSA’s about global warming, about how we need to drive inefficient clown cars that run on electricity (which is still produced in coal-powered plants but hey, whatever) to save the planet. Musicians like Sheryl Crow crowed about using just a square of toilet paper to remove waste that has a greater street value than her latest album. All the hubris manifested in regulations handed down from Congress upon the automobile industry, the coal industry, et al., until finally! Cap’n Trade appeared in the House.

Cap’n Trade will rape and pillage your energy bills and even boss you around when it comes to remodeling or rehabbing a home. It’s almost like … congress has nothing better to do.

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You mean if we don’t add a trillion dollars to the deficit then the country will … go … bankrupt?

Is it Opposite Day?

President Obama told ABC News’ Charles Gibson in an interview that if Congress does not pass health care legislation that will bring down costs, the federal government “will go bankrupt.”

The president laid out a dire scenario of what will happen if his health care reform effort fails.

“If we don’t pass it, here’s the guarantee….your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you,” he said. “Potentially they’re going to drop your coverage, because they just can’t afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the costs of providing health care to employees each and every year. “

The president said that the costs of Medicare and Medicaid are on an “unsustainable” trajectory and if there is no action taken to bring them down, “the federal government will go bankrupt.”

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