WASHINGTON (AP) – Weary after a year of partisan bickering, lawmakers tried Monday to wrap up a sprawling $1 trillion-plus spending bill that chips away at military and environmental spending but denies conservatives many of the policy changes they wanted on social issues, government regulations and health care.

The measure implements this summer’s hard-fought budget pact between President Barack Obama and Republican leaders. That deal essentially freezes agency budgets, on average, at levels for the recently-completed budget year that were approved back in April.

Drafted behind closed doors, the proposed bill would pay for the war in Afghanistan but give the Pentagon just a 1 percent boost in annual spending, while the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget would be cut by 3.5 percent.

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I really hate mice, but even I felt for the freakishly disgusting rodents when I was walking around Target and saw mouse traps with FAKE cheese on ‘em. Are mice so freaking stupid they’d actually fall for something pretending to hold the most coveted of cuisines within a mouse’s palette?

There’s a political parallel there…

Monday, President Obama announced a plan to force banks to refinance home mortgages for those who are upside-down in their property. For those of us who bought high and now couldn’t dream of selling at a profit, this is a wonderful way for us to benefit from a government that seems to spend on programs that’ll impact us, right?

But then we take a few steps closer and realize if we fall for this, we’re being sucked into something we already kinda fell for a few years back.

The original mortgage plan, put into effect in 2009, was designed to allow those who are current with their payments but have little or no equity in their home to secure lower mortgage rates. The President’s Home Affordable Refinance Program has helped only 894,000 borrowers since the spring of 2009. The administration had originally hoped up to 5 million homeowners would benefit. I guess this didn’t work as planned. This revised plan is supposedly going to help up to 1.6M homeowners and will force banks, on paper, to take a loss on the mortgages of people who over-extended themselves.

What the President is really feeding us is nothing more than a petrified piece of cheese that’s sat out in the sun way too long and has now been spray-painted and re-molded so as to broaden its appeal (so he hopes) in order to garner votes from an electorate who would otherwise NOT vote for him. (more…)

Earlier this month, while South Korean President Lee Myung Bak was visiting the United States, his military commanders were back home watching out for ammunition boxes.

North Korea’s military had moved combat aircraft, mobile ground-to-air missiles and missile launchers to attack positions near the border with the South. Had those ammo boxes – the final step in preparations for an attack – appeared, whether for war-making or simply for live-fire exercises, it might well have triggered a resumption of the shooting war that began in the 1950s and never truly has ended.

Elsewhere recently, a North Korean diplomat at low-level talks at the University of Georgia said war on the peninsula seems closer now than it has in decades, and Iran was linked to a clumsy attempt to assassinate a Saudi diplomat in Washington. The Iranians also are “playing” in hot spots throughout the Middle East – from Syria to Yemen to Egypt and even the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and working feverishly to overcome a cyber attack on its nuclear weapons development program.

Clearly, this is no time for the United States to let down its guard on missile defense. Congress – which is under pressure to cut defense spending but maintain capabilities – must show resolve to ensure our nation, troops and allies are protected.

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My memories of September 11, 2001 are likely little different than those of so many others. Thankfully, no one I knew died in those attacks, but I mourned just the same; and in that way one can ever truly recover from such a thing, I still do and always will mourn.

Ten years on, my emotions have evolved, however. Because for ten years I’ve watched the Left, much of Hollywood and almost all of the news media turn against our country for mercenary, partisan political reasons. And none of this surprised me. In the aftermath of the atrocity as solemn celebrities hosted benefit concerts and Democrats sang “God Bless America” on the Capitol steps, I knew it wouldn’t last and that over time they would become America’s enemy within in the fight to protect herself. I never even took a moment to hope I was wrong. Why waste the energy.

If you recall, we had seen it all before. We saw it when after spending years undermining a war of liberation with the Killing Fields of Cambodia as a direct result, the Left never once stopped to second guess themselves.

With great pride I watched my cousin Kyle join the military when the war was at its ugliest and just last week my grandson Mikey left boot camp and started his hazmat training with National Guard. With horror I’ve watched the Left use every dishonest trick and tool at their disposal to make their jobs harder.

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I happened to be in a hair salon when the news first hit. The shock was palpable as word spread from the employees to their clients. There was surprise, then sadness. It was one of those moments some people will always remember exactly where they were and what they were doing at the time.

Upon returning home, sketchy details emerged on internet-news sites, and the Facebook and Twitter-sphere were abuzz as people came to terms with the sad reality.

Amy Winehouse was dead.

This particular singer, who’s only semi-legitimate claim to fame was an appropriate ditty about her refusal to go to rehab, should have surprised no one who bothered to care when she reportedly topped her own previous attempts at excess with a mix of cocaine, heroine and horse tranquilizers; or if you’re to believe her parents, a lack of alcohol.

This singer-turned-public-spectacle became the latest martyr of the Me Generations who elevate practitioners of extreme-hedonism-to-the-point-of-death to romantic notions of victimhood. You know, troubled creative geniuses struggling with enormous and unexpected success. Pushing a 27-year-old body to the point of death through partying takes actual work, and an absolute inability to control one’s cravings.

The next weekend, news hit that a Chinook helicopter had been shot down during a raid in Afghanistan, killing all 30 on board, including 22 Navy SEALs, many reportedly from the elite Team 6. Loss of life during a time of war is tragic, but military casualties are an expected and necessary evil and cost of wars fought for an ostensibly greater good.

But there’s something especially devastating – both psychologically and militarily – about losing so many of the very best. To the extent the internet blogosphere and Facebook are any indications of public sentiment, at least among certain demographics, the public expressions of sadness and grief at this event was mostly confined to those few pro-military individuals. The public expressions of shock and sadness were far less than the number reserved for the drug-addicted dead singer/public spectacle, and only one brave person in my sphere of online friends dared to call out the general population on their sad priorities.

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Patrick “Kit” Bobko was willing to jump out of airplanes to earn his airborne wings as an Air Force Academy cadet, so the dying dinosaur that is the Los Angeles Times is not going to intimidate him.  Nor is the fact that California’s 36^th Congressional District has a marked Democratic registration advantage.  On Tuesday May 17^th, Kit will be facing a cast of over 15 competitors in an early test of California’s wacky new open primary law.  Refreshingly young, smart, and conservative, Kit Bobko might just foreshadow the new resurrection of California’s DOA Republican Party.

Congressional Candidate Kit Bobko

The 36^th District covers the southern coast of Los Angeles County, anchored on the south by the hills of Rancho Palos Verdes where amazing rich people enjoy spectacular views of the Pacific from Malibu to Catalina Island.  It then heads north, ending in the bohemian nightmare that is Venice.  In between are Torrance and the beach cities of Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach and Hermosa Beach, where Kit has twice been elected to the city council and has battled all manner of liberal nitwittery.  These are generally prosperous towns, getting wealthier the closer one goes toward the unrivaled beaches.  These people are natural Republicans but don’t seem to know it – educated, affluent, and entrepreneurial, they are the enemies of a liberal machine that still somehow get their votes.   Last year they famously reelected a liberal state senator over her GOP rival despite her clear disqualification from office – she tragically died during the campaign.

Up to the 90s, the voters would check the box for GOP candidates in state and federal elections, but for the last several terms they sent Democrat Jane Harman to Washington.  Harman easily won reelection in 2010, but Congress being no fun when the Democrats weren’t in a majority anymore, she quit earlier this year.  Harman didn’t need the aggravation – she was likely the richest member of Congress thanks to her recently deceased husband Sidney, who founded the Harmon-Kardon audio empire and recently bought Newsweek for $1, which was much more than it was worth.  Harman called herself a “blue dog” Democrat, which meant she pretended to be a fiscal conservative and hid the usual contempt for American security that her comrades typically display when she was home, and then went back east and voted so left that it would make a Bolshevik blush.

Kit may just have an edge because he does not have the capacity to be two-faced, a likely result of the training he received as an Air Force Academy graduate.

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On Sunday the world was again reminded that the American military, when given a clear and specific mission, is the most potent force in history. The daring mission, conducted deep inside Pakistan was the culmination of a decade-long manhunt. While the brave men on the ground enjoyed the satisfaction of killing the world’s most wanted terrorist, hundreds of other military and intelligence personnel were also rewarded for countless hours of intense and stressful work.

They all have the earned their place among the country’s heroes.

All Americans are grateful for their dedication, professionalism and commitment to protecting our nation and her people.  So, it was no surprise that the United States Senate took time on Tuesday to honor these men and women by discussing and passing a resolution expressing the nation’s thanks for a job well done.

It was also no surprise that similar resolutions were introduced in the U.S. House, the “peoples’ chamber.” Although slightly different, resolutions from Reps. Thaddeus McCotter, Sheila Jackson Lee and Bill Owens also expressed the nation’s deep appreciation of the men and women who played a role in this dangerous mission.

But, a funny thing happened on the way to passage; House GOP leadership decided not to pass ANY resolution honoring our service personnel. They simply went about their normal business and then left town yesterday, ignoring all of the resolutions. It is unlikely the House will ever get around to, you know, saying thanks for doing such a great job.

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It would be the ultimate irony if the one courageous and decisive act by President Obama turned out to be yet another liability. Quite frankly, it would not be surprising either.

Questions about how the death and burial of Osama bin Laden came about are mounting. It is becoming increasingly evident that the White House is now backing off, changing details, and spinning to its political advantage an event that should primarily celebrate a decade of U.S. policies of intelligence-gathering and military strategy, as well as the strength and competence of the best-trained military in the world.

CIA Chief, Leon Panetta, now appears to be at odds with the White House, regarding both the release of photos of bin Laden’s body and whether waterboarding was used to extract intelligence information from detainees of Guantanamo.

White House spokesman Jay Carney, and now the president himself, has said that the White House is reluctant to release the photos of the body because of concern about “sensitivities.” The question is, whose “sensitivities?” Other radical jihadists who may be enraged further with the United States? American citizens who have already witnessed gruesome photos of dead civilians- courtesy of the main stream media- in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or, the liberal base of the Democratic party, who can’t quite get their heads around the fact that their president- who is supposedly of such superior moral character, and has already done such a thorough job of apologizing to the world for the “transgressions” of the United States- actually made a decision to kill the apparently unarmed terrorist within sight of his wife (or child), to defend and preserve American freedom and security?

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As readers of Big Government know, an impasse over a few billion dollars in proposed spending cuts threatens to shutdown the federal government. (And, by a few billion dollars I mean, rounding error.) As regular readers should also know, I’ve come to embrace a shutdown, rather than fear it.

As this recent Congressional Research Service report explains, if the government were to shutdown, an OMB Directive issued in the 1980s (along with a handful of legal opinions) guide what parts of government continue to function and what parts must close down.  Short story, all of the important functions of government, i.e national security, the military, air traffic control, border security, Social Security payments, etc., will continue to function. The parts that have to shut down…well, lets just say they are candidates for permanent cuts. I mean, if the country functions for several weeks without a few hundred thousand ‘non-essential’ employees, couldn’t we probably function without them forever? I’m not saying every one of these jobs should necessarily be eliminated…but it isn’t a good place to start?

Sensing the potential PR nightmare from this, it seems the Obama Administration may have decided to raise the stakes on a shutdown. According to draft guidance from the Pentagon, the Obama Administration will require military personnel to report to work…but, will hold their paychecks until the impasse is resolved. As Government Executive explained in a March 15th article:

Military personnel and exempt Defense Department civilian employees are required to continue working without pay during a government shutdown, according to guidance from the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

In a memo prepared earlier this month, Defense officials noted that service members and some civilian workers, including those involved in national security and the protection of life and property, still must report for duty but will not be paid until Congress appropriates funds to reimburse them for that period of service. All other employees will be furloughed, the memo stated.

Military personnel are not subject to furlough.

This is new.

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When the President ordered the attack on Libya without Congressional authorization, he crossed a very bright Constitutional line that he himself recognized in 2007 when he told the Boston Globe “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

The reason the American Founders reserved the question of war to Congress was that they wanted to assure that so momentous a decision could not be made by a single individual. They had watched European kings plunge their nations into bloody and debilitating wars and wanted to avoid that fate for the American Republic.

The most fatal and consequential decision a nation can make is to go to war, and the American Founders wanted that decision made by all the representatives of the people after careful deliberation. Only when Congress has made that fateful decision does it fall to the President as Commander in Chief to command our armed forces in that war.

The authors of the Constitution were explicit on this point. In Federalist 69, Alexander Hamilton drew a sharp distinction between the American President’s authority as Commander in Chief, which he said “would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces” and that of the British king who could actually declare war.

To contend that the President has the legal authority to commit an act of war without Congressional approval requires ignoring every word the Constitution’s authors said on this subject – and they said quite a lot.

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Bill Gates of Microsoft fame (or infamy)  visited the Claremont Colleges this past week. You can watch that visit here. What follows is a transcript typed by one of my associates of that event.

Gates, after discussing his foundation’s work, had harsh words for America’s health care system.

Our health care system has huge problems. It’s got equity problems where the poorest in the country of all the rich countries our poorest quarter get the worst health care so the accessibility is a huge problem.

We spend 17.8 % of GDP, the number two, which is Switzerland, spends 12.3% so you have — it’s mind blowing — you have over a five percent of GDP difference. That means that one out of every twenty people in the country are excess people in our health care system that other countries that get better results than we do, don’t have.  If you take inefficiency disadvantage like that, than you take how much we spend on defense versus everybody else, and how much we spend on legal stuff versus everybody else, you can start to say, ‘Wow. How do you stay competitive with those things?’ So our medical system has to change. I happen to like the Swiss system and the German system the best, which are not a single payer Canadian or British type system, but I’d take any rich country’s medical system over ours. Ours is provably the worst. [Audience laughter]. It is the most expensive and the least equitable.

Gates walked back a bit from that statement. “Now you have to be a little careful, because everybody else drafts off of us. We do a lot of the research. We do more basic research, our consumers pay more per drug. What other countries do is watch what happens here. If something is cost-effective, they adopt it, usually with about a three-year lag. Many of the things we do, like care at the end of life, or various therapies that are unbelievably expensive,  they just don’t adopt those things. “

In other words, the Europeans have death panels.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Lt. Col. Oliver North to discuss his time at the Naval Academy, media on the frontline, and stories from his new book, American Heroes in Special Operations.

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

Related Links:

Coffee and Markets Archive
The Book: American Heroes in Special Operations
Learn More at OliverNorth.com
Oliver North on Facebook

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Illinois blogger, Marathon Pundit, is correctly demanding that EVERY military ballot be counted in the land of Lincoln.

The GOP had a terrific Election Day in the Land of Lincoln, winning a US Senate seat and at least three House seats. In the governor’s race, with 99 percent of precincts counted, incumbent Democrat Pat Quinn leads Republican challenger Bill Brady by 10,000 votes.

As the Democrats repeated ad nauseam is  during the 2000 Florida recount, “We need to count all the votes.”

And that includes all of the military votes.

Not only should ever military ballot be counted, the entire Illinois election should be forensically audited, regardless of outcome. Can you imagine how much fraud would be exposed?

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Not only are the outstanding men and women of the American Military professional enough to overcome any cohesion issues related to gay soldiers, homosexuals have the added bonus of infuriating our current enemy.

Wave of Homophobia Sweeps the Muslim World

Violent Muslim Homophobia – The Jihad against gays

The only thing that would piss off the Jihadis more would be if The US Military formed whole platoons of un-kosher gay Jews. Inglorious Bitches?

In the wake of the tsunami of protests from its members over the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) endorsement of a slew of anti-military incumbents, the VFW’s “leadership” has issued a new statement trying to calm the furor and, in doing so, has further embarrassed itself.  You see, to them, the problem isn’t that the VFW allowed its good name to be tarred by supporting candidates like the one who literally partied with Hanoi Jane Fonda.

No, the problem is that you, the veterans, are just too stupid to understand how it’s not the leadership’s fault that this happened on their watch:

Comrades,

The angry tone and tenor of the telephone calls and messages being received at national headquarters make it clear that many of our members are not cognizant of the fact that VFW National By-Laws clearly stipulate that the VFW Commander-in-Chief is not authorized to direct or otherwise attempt to introduce his control over the VFW PAC. Furthermore, no membership dues or donations made to the VFW or VFW Foundation are used for the VFW PAC.

As you know, the recent endorsements by the PAC are the subject of much controversy. Unfortunately, many questions have been raised regarding VFW’s involvement in the endorsement process and the integrity of the organization as a whole. Regrettably, many of our members and supporters are disappointed and have misdirected their anger toward the VFW as having lost its purpose.

Comrades, we cannot sit idly by while a great organization is being disparaged and maligned, even unintentionally. It is vitally important that you take a direct role in alleviating this current flood of criticism by reminding members and supporters that:

– The VFW PAC was created by the VFW members and not by VFW national leaders. 2/3 of the delegates of the 80th VFW National Convention (1979) voted to establish PAC as a standing committee.

– VFW By-Laws stipulate that VFW leadership does not direct PAC activities and that the VFW convention is the governing body of the organization. As such, it is only the delegates at the convention that can determine the continuation of the PAC.

– Encourage VFW members to get involved in their VFW Posts and to exercise and further direct their concerns to convention delegates so that there can be an informed debate on the existence of the PAC.

If I know my vets, they are plenty “cognizant” of when they are being fed a bunch of crap.

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Should military hospitals be used to save lives or to kill unborn babies? The U.S. Senate may soon take action to overturn long-standing policy by sanctioning the performance of abortions in domestic and overseas military facilities–effectively turning military hospitals and other facilities into abortion clinics. This would be the largest expansion of abortion availability since the original Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973. Overnight, your tax dollars will create 423 new abortion clinics. While much of the media attention on this bill has focused on the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” debate and now amnesty for illegal aliens, many Americans should be deeply concerned that this bill turns our military healthcare system into domestic and international abortion providers.

This past May, when the Senate Armed Services Committee considered the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, Senator Roland Burris (D-IL) offered an amendment to end the current prohibition on performing abortions in military hospitals. If enacted, this amendment would overturn a law that has been in place since 1996, signed into law by President Clinton.

Military healthcare centers — which are dedicated to healing and caring for life — should not facilitate the taking of an innocent human life: an unborn child. Allowing abortions in military facilities will continue to strain already burdened medical personnel who are working to save the lives of our men and women in service. At a time when our nation is at war, are we really going to divert scarce personnel and resources for elective abortions?

This change in policy will also likely hurt recruitment and retention of military medical professionals—possibly driving many health care providers out of the military if they have conscience objections to performing abortion. When President Clinton allowed abortions in military facilities from 1993 to 1996, many military physicians (as well as nurses and support staff) refused to perform or assist in elective abortions. In response, the Administration hired civilians to do abortions. If the Burris amendment were enacted, not only would taxpayer funded facilities be used to support abortion on demand, but tax dollars could also be used to search, hire, and transport new personnel just so abortions could be performed.

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During a campaign stop in Inglewood, California this past weekend, Barbara Boxer’s disrespectful attitude toward our armed forces was on full display when she equated the experiences of Members of Congress with the experiences of those who have put their lives on the line serving our country in uniform.

Boxer said this, at an event during which she was supposed to help break ground on new housing for homeless veterans:

“We know that if you have veterans in one place where they can befriend each other and talk to each other. You know when you’ve gone through similar things you need to share it. I don’t care whether you are a policeman or a fireman or a veteran or by chance a member of Congress. Maxine and I could look at each other and roll our eyes. We know what we are up against. And it is hard for people who are not there to understand the pressure and the great things that go along with it and the tough things that go along with it.”

She followed this up by appearing later in the day at a campaign fundraiser featuring none other than “Hanoi Jane” Fonda.

Barbara Boxer has never been loved by the military, veterans, their friends or family.  She has a history of voting against troop funding and opposing military missions undertaken abroad.  She voted against condemning MoveOn.org’s disgraceful, full-page New York Times ad that attacked the integrity of General David Petraeus.  More recently, of course, she dressed down a brigadier general on national television, insisting that he call her “senator” instead of “ma’am.”

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Dear Friends of Freedom Alliance:

This week, false and malicious allegations about Freedom Alliance were posted on the Internet and we want to address them with you. We don’t know the motivation for these vicious smears, but we will not allow them to go unanswered.

First, we want to thank you for your support and assure you that Freedom Alliance’s record of financial stewardship and programmatic achievements not only meets, but exceeds standards of program efficiency set by most charity evaluators. We are extraordinarily proud of our work at Freedom Alliance and stand by our efforts 100 percent.

False Accusations

1. The blog posting accuses our friend Sean Hannity of personally benefiting from Freedom Alliance. This is FALSE. Freedom Alliance has never provided planes, hotels, cars, limos, or anything else to Sean. Sean gets nothing from Freedom Alliance except our gratitude for his personal generosity and for all he has done to help the troops and our organization. We have never had to ask Sean for anything, he always generously offers his help before we have a chance to ask him. But to be clear Sean pays for all his own transportation, hotels, and all related expenses for himself and his family and friends and staff, which over the years has added up to tens of thousands of dollars. He does not use any Freedom Alliance Funds or Concert funds in any way, period. (more…)