Empirical research has proven in recent years that people who favor smaller government, by whatever label – conservatives, Tea Partiers, whatever – are smarter, better-informed, better-educated and more generally successful at life, are generally happier, more generous,  and are even better in bed than big-government people by whatever label (liberal, “progressive’, yadda yadda).

And now, we have proof that not only are we as a whole less racist than big-government advocates…:

Social scientists usually measure traditional racism against African Americans by looking at the survey responses of white Americans only. Among whites in the latest General Social Survey (2008), only 4.5% of small-government advocates express the view that “most Blacks/African-Americans have less in-born ability to learn,” compared to 12.3% of those who favor bigger government or take a middle position expressing this racist view (Figure 2). We social scientists sometimes like to express things in relative odds, especially for small percentages. Here the odds of small government whites not expressing racist views (21-to-1 odds) is three times higher than the odds of big-government whites not being racist (7-to-1 odds).

…but that we long-abused white male small-government are, empirically, the least-racist subgroup of all, by a whopping margin:

Figure 3 shows that, among whites, Republican advocates of smaller government are even less racist (1.3% believing that blacks have less in-born ability) than the rest of the general public (11.3% expressing racist views). Thus, in 2008 Republicans who believe that the government in Washington does too much have 10 times higher odds of not expressing racist views on the in-born ability question than the rest of the population (79-to-1 odds v. 7.9-to-1 odds).

How social conservatives who aren’t necessarily small-government – stereotypically southern?

Yep – still half as likely to be a racist as a typical American:

In 2008, only 5.4% of white conservative Republicans expressed racist views on the in-born ability question, compared to 10.3% of the rest of the white population.

An aberration – perhaps caused by all that messianic hopey-changey twaddle?

Nope:

In sixteen surveys from 1977 through 2008 (Figure 4), overall white Republicans were significantly less racist on the in-born ability question than white Democrats (13.3% to 17.3%), and white conservative Republicans were significantly less racist than other white Americans (11.7% to 14.7%), though in most surveys the differences were too small to be significant taken individually — and in the 1993 survey, the relationship was reversed: conservative Republicans were significantly more racist on the racial inheritance question than the rest of the public.

Another traditional racism question — on segregated neighborhoods — was asked on fifteen General Social Surveys from 1972 through 1996. Though the percentage of white Democrats and white Republicans who slightly or strongly agreed that “White people have a right to keep Blacks out of their neighborhoods” did not differ significantly in any one survey, overall white Democrats were significantly more likely to support segregated neighborhoods than white Republicans (30.4% to 26.3%).

Quite clearly, the legacy of Nixon’s “southern strategy” – which was never especially racist in its own right – is long dead.

The Dems’ “racism of low expectations” is, in fact, just racism.

Maybe we need some sort of outreach program to, I dunno, judge people by the contents of their hearts rather than the color of their skin.

Parachutes might not actually save lives.

Serious.  The FDA has never run a double-blind study, there’s no academic literature on the subject, and therefore…

The perception that parachutes are a successful intervention is based largely on anecdotal evidence. Observational data have shown that their use is associated with morbidity and mortality, due to both failure of the intervention1 2 and iatrogenic complications*.3 In addition, “natural history” studies of free fall indicate that failure to take or deploy a parachute does not inevitably result in an adverse outcome.4 We therefore undertook a systematic review of randomised controlled trials of parachutes.

British historian Paul Johnson was one of the people who turned me into a conservative.

His seminal Modern Times – The History Of The World From The Twenties Through The Eighties, was instrumental, not only in stomping flat the last shreds of the fabian leftism I grew up with, but showing me the intellectual basis for the American exceptionalism that was such a cornerstone of the Reagan worldview.

If you’re a liberal, he’s not only much, much smarter than you, he’s smarter than your so-called smart guys.  He uses “liberal intellectuals” for firewood.  He picks “thinkers” like Ezra Klein out of his stool in the morning.

And he figures America’s best days are in front of it:

“Of course I worry about America,” he says. “The whole world depends on America ultimately, particularly Britain. And also, I love America—a marvelous country. But in a sense I dont worry about America because I think America has such huge strengths—particularly its freedom of thought and expression—that its going to survive as a top nation for the foreseeable future. And therefore take care of the world.

Pessimists, he points out, have been predicting Americas decline “since the 18th century.” But whenever things are looking bad, America “suddenly produces these wonderful things—like the tea party movement. Thats cheered me up no end. Because its done more for women in politics than anything else—all the feminists? Nuts! Its brought a lot of very clever and quite young women into mainstream politics and got them elected. A very good little movement, that. I like it.” Then he deepens his voice for effect and adds: “And I like that lady—Sarah Palin. Shes great. I like the cut of her jib.”

Just read the whole thing.  Maybe, if you’re a liberal, you’ll convert too…

“…the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”

Winston Churhill

Now hear the new poster child of the socialist movement in Amerika, Michael Moore:

Moore On Wealthy People’s Money: “That’s Not Theirs, That’s A National Resource, It’s Ours”

“They’re sitting on the money, they’re using it for their own — they’re putting it someplace else with no interest in helping you with your life, with that money. We’ve allowed them to take that.

Michael Moore thinks the wealthy should give it back.

I say, you first Michael.

Via David Brauer, I see former governor Arne Carlson has a blog.

Well, don’t get too excited; he’s done four posts so far.  But the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, as they say.

Carlson dislikes being called a “backstabber” in “Politico” for his tireless work against Tim Pawlenty (and of course Tom Emmer) over the past nine years.  Carlson doesn’t like being criticized, naturally; he tells us so.

Now, the Minnesota GOP tossed Carlson, and a bunch of other former GOP officeholders who actively campaigned against Tom Emmer and, by extension, the party’s nascent conservatism, this past election.

Now, Carlson has the right to his opinion.  And he knows it, naturally: he makes no bones about his not liking the current crop of conservative Republicans, including Pawlenty:

It is no secret that I have serious qualms about the candidacy of Governor Pawlenty and do not believe his claims of prudent financial management come anywhere close to the truth. Hence, the scrutiny will continue……….

He even told Politico that he’d go on the road, pay any price and bear any burden to try to keep Pawlenty out of the White House (emphasis added):

“I will go to Iowa and New Hampshire and have press conferences, if it comes to that,” he told POLITICO in an interview. “With Tim Pawlenty, I’m outraged that his record is one of the worst in Minnesota history, and he refuses to answer any relevant question.”

Now, Carlson is entitled to his opinion.  Of course, his own record is one of a governor who ruled in generally good times; 1990-1998 was a pretty cha-cha time in Minnesota, barring a brief recession early on as the Defense industry retrenched and the Iron Range went through its usual, eternal spasms.  The booming economy gave Carlson repeated budget surpluses – which he promptly turned into permanent entitlement spending, which promptly turned into deficit-fodder when times turned tough in 2000 and again in 2008.   State government zoomed in size.   His own record is that of someone who spent money like a crack whore with a stolen gold card.  We, The People of Minnesota, financed his spending spree with a healthy cut off of our take from the good times in this state.  Had he governed in tough times – as Pawlenty did, through two recessions – he’d have presided over a California-like collapse, in all likelihood.

That’s fine.  Again, he can have his opinion.

But the regional media would have you believe that we, the current MNGOP, have to continue paying obeisance and honor to someone who not only spits on what we believe, but actively tries to use his old (ancient!) party credentials against us, and our candidates, and our most successful alumnus so far!

What would the DFL do to someone like that?  Ask Randy Kelly!

Forget about calling Arne Carlson a “Quisling”, as Tony Sutton did – accurately, if a bit hyperbolically.

We’re not supposed to criticize him in any way – as if having been a spendthrift governor in cha-cha times gives him papal-esque infallibility.

A recent study of Great Tits may lend commentary to America’s over-subscription to government entitlements.

In Britain, the world capital of amateur ornithology roughly half of households put food out for their feathered friends, and it is estimated that around 30m of the country’s birds are given nourishment this way every year. Other places are somewhat less generous, but the general principle holds. Encouraging birds is good, and what better way to encourage them than to feed them?

Dr Amrhein’s team conducted their study in the suburbs of Oslo, in the spring of 2007. The objects of their attention were 28 male great tits, each of which was observed at dawn three times, with 16-17 days between the observations.

The purpose of the study: to see if leaving food out for birds is beneficial or detrimental.

Dr Amrhein expected that males who were being given extra food would perform better during the dawn chorus than those that were not.

The “Dawn Chorus” being the primary element of the males’ mating ritual.

To his surprise, he discovered exactly the opposite. Those who received food supplements got lazy. He and his colleagues report in Animal Behaviour that 36% of the males whose feeders were filled started singing only after the sun had already come up. Among the birds without this extra food, that happened only 10% of the time. Moreover, the effect was sustained after feeders were removed, for it was still apparent at the time of the third observation.

Turns out gratuitous entitlements make birds lazy. Do you suppose it has the same effect on Americans?

This post is for conservative Minnesota voters.  People in other states, and Minnesotans in the “Fantasy-based community”, can skip down a notch.

Question for all of you:  Representative King Banaian – not to mention the other three Republicans who voted “no” on the GOP budget bill in the House last week – is not talking to me at this exact moment, so I didn’t just ask him or anything – but do any of you actually believe that, had the votes not been there to pass the House GOP’s budget-slashing proposal without it, that Rep. Banaian wouldn’t have voted for it?

If so, why?

And before answering that, make sure you read HF2, which he introduced, a bill intended to bring genuine conservative fiscal common sense to government.  And make sure you understand it.

Then bag on King’s conservative cred.

But you gotta go through me first.

Sheila Kihne at The Activist Next Door is tired of seeing conservatives doing the media’s work for them.

She assails Chris Christie for throwing Sarah Palin under the bus on the Sunday Methane Circuit over the weekend:

Here’s what [Governor Christie’s] answer should have been to any questions about Sarah Palin:

“There is nobody more hated by the media than Governor Palin. How exactly is she supposed to act when the media tried to lay the blame for a mass-murder on her? Look, you’re trying to get me to distance myself from a fellow conservative and I won’t do it. People are mad at you– they’re more mad at you than they are President Obama or Governor Palin. They’re mad at you because you’re incapable of doing your job as the free press and reporting the news to the American people without your constant spin. Perhaps you guys should buy some steno pads with the words ‘Who, what, when, where, how, how much?’ imprinted at the top of the page.’ Maybe that would help.”

That’s the “Palin answer” men of the GOP. Why is it that the ONLY Republicans with high name-recognition who demonstrate valor, strength, and courage are women? Sarah Palin is more of a man than any of these guys.

Well, to be fair, Palin’s never had to face down the Jersey unions.

And isn’t it sad that we now have to look to the wilds of Alaska for some ruggedness and true grit? To quote a great 80’s tune: “Where have all the good men gone?”

They’re all over the place – but Sheila makes a great point – and you need to read her entire piece for it, but I’ll synopsize it here:  conservatives need to quit playing along with the Democrat and Media (pardon the redundancy) effort to turn the vocabulary of our language itself into a liberal tool to be used against us.

We conservatives (as opposed to Republicans) are going to little in the way of dispassionate balance, to say nothing of help, from the media; we have to do it for ourselves.

Sheila does “the Palin Answer” pretty well.  I’m going to suggest a few more areas where conservatives, locally and nationally, need to stick together in the face of the left and media’s (ptr) chanting points:

• We Have A $6.2 Billion Deficit:  Correct response: “No, we don’t.  We have a forecast that is $6.2B larger than the last revenue projections.  It is not a budget.  It can – and must – be trimmed, and the “autopilot” assumptions that keep leading to these absurd numbers need to be abolished”.
• The GOP Budget Attacks Education: Correct response: “There is precisely zero link between education spending and achievement.  Minnesota, North Dakota, the District of Columbia and South Carolina spent, respectively, $10.1K, 9.3K, 16K and 9K per student in 2008; while picking “objective” measures of achievement are difficult, by most standards (SAT scores, to pick an arbitrary one) North Dakota and Minnesota are statisatically identically high in achievement; the D of C and South Carolina are both at the bottom of the heap.  No, indeed, since 80% of what we spend on education goes into faculty and staff salaries and pensions (!), all “education spending” really measures is the excellence…of the Teachers’ Union’s clout.”
• “We Can’t Balance The Budget On The Backs Of The Poor!”:  Correct response: “The GOP proposals would make harder to expand the pool of people who can get entitlements from the state.  The “forecast” proposal would increase Health and Human Services spending by 37% – that’s thirty seven freaking percent – in the coming budget.  That’s not just ridiculous, not just absurd; it’s obscene.  The DFL goal of expanding the subsidies of poverty (and, especially, of the HHS bureaucracy) beyond what’s needed to prevent hunger and other abject poverty must not be done on the backs of the taxpayers!”

Sheila’s on to something.

More?

The RNC bids adieu to its chairman. 

It was only two years ago in the wake of a confidence shattering election that establishment Republicans gambled on redesigning the party’s infrastructure on a foundation of Steele.   As Maryland’s former lieutenant governor and losing ’06 Senate candidate, Michael Steele had few direct qualifications for what was largely a managerial role, save a brief term as the Maryland GOP’s chair.  Instead, Steele (and the RNC members who supported his election in 2009) seemingly envisioned the chairmanship as the role of Promoter-in-Chief.  And after two gaffe-filled years of Steele tickling his tonseils with his heels while racking up Obamaesque debts, the RNC not only parted ways with Steele but likely also with the mindset that elected him.

The laymen’s criticism of Steele’s tenure would be to endorse what the Baltimore Sun wrote of him in 2002, that Steele “brings little to the team but the color of skin.”  And Steele most certainly was an affirmative action hire – but more for his policies than pigmentation. 

With the GOP routed by a supposedly moderate sounding African-American orator, the party was willing to promote a poorly Xeroxed copy of the same qualities.  The mere prospect of improved outreached to independents, young voters and minorities was enough for some to stomach Steele’s more centrist than center-right orthodoxy. 

So what if Steele was pro-choice, was against the war in Afghanistan, insulted the party’s conservative base, and played the race card against his own party when it suited him – he was going to give the Grand Old Party a “hip-hop” makeover.  Steele was so out of sync with the times, he was one giant clock around his neck away from becoming the Republican Flavor Flav.

All might have been forgiven had Steele simply done his job.  But while the zeitgeist of the conservative base was moving away trusting the party appartatus, Steele was trying to buy private jets as the RNC was enduring questions about expenses at bondage-themed nightclubs.  The result?  Fundraising lagged as the RGA became the defacto home of the Republican establishment despite the fact that Steele’s face was on TV more than the RGA’s Gov. Haley Barbour.

In such a light, there’s little wonder the RNC elected Reince Prius.  Reece Priebus.  Reese Pieces.  What’s-his-name or to the voting members, Not Michael Steele.  Priebus saw a tremendous political turnaround in Wisconsin, in part due to the party’s ability to win back the trust of Tea Party sympathizers without alienating independents. 

The task before Priebus is certainly much larger than what he faced in Wisconsin, but unlike Steele will hopefully succeed or fail outside the media limelight.

Oops.  Sorry about the “rhetoric”.  Gotta watch me – I’m a loose cannon…

…DOH!  I mean, I’m a ticking time bomb…

AAAAAGH! I mean “I’m on Janet Napolitano’s Watch List because of  my beliefs”.  Whew.  OK.  Made it.

Where was I?

Oh, yeah.  The Minnesota Legislative session.

Back during the campaign, when I’d do appearances at campaign fundraisers and the like, I frequently signed off my brief talks with challenges to everyone there; to the voters, the challenge was “on November 3,  your work really begins; you’ll need to keep these candidates true to their promises”.  And to the candidates, it was an allusion to the legend of the Spartans, to told departing warriors “come back with your shield, or on it“…

DOH!  Sorry – another bit of inflammatory rhetoric!  Paul Krugman will be displeased!

Breathe.  Center.  OK.

The bit of rhetoric, in context, is generally understood to mean “fight the good fight, politically; don’t put your re-election ahead of the princples for which we’re sending you to Saint Paul”.

It’s good to see the GOP legislative majority is making its first moves this week.  We’ve got two bits of news to report.

More Nukes!:  With energy prices spiking just in time for the hardest winter in decades, it’s perhaps great timing for the GOP to push for the repeal of Minnesota’s dim-witted 17-year-old “moratorium” on nuclear power plants.

Bills to end the 17-year ban will be introduced today in the House and Senate, with a House committee scheduled to vote on the proposal Tuesday. The chief sponsors will be state Rep. Joyce Peppin, R-Rogers, and Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch, R-Buffalo.

With new Republican majorities in both bodies, the legislation is expected to pass easily. Then its fate would be up to Gov. Mark Dayton, who has opposed the effort because there’s still no plan to deal with the highly radioactive nuclear waste generated at those plants.

And of course, that’s wrong; there is a plan.  It’s merely been gundecked – DOH, sorry, I mean it’s been sabotaged by generations of soggy-headed environmentalists who apparently prefer coal power, or energy-starved poverty, to nuclear power.  “Environmentalists”, inevitably, from the DFL and their farm team, the Greens.  “Environmentalist” like Paul Aasen, Dayton’s pick to head the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, a man who targets – AAAGH – job creation and economic growth as remorselessly as Sarah Palin targets a caribou.

Both parties agree it would take years for a new plant to be approved and built. But they differ on the impact of the legislation and the need.

Republicans contend the ban, put in place in 1994 as part of a package allowing dry-cask nuclear-waste storage, must be lifted to allow serious planning to begin. Many Democrats say utilities can do that now; they just can’t act on it.

I bolded that last bit there; doesn’t that sound like someone who looooves regulation, and has not the faintest sympathy for people who actually accomplish things?  Can’t you see them giggling about that at their after-session soiree?

Xcel Energy, which owns the Prairie Island and Monticello nuclear plants, has said it has no plans for another nuclear plant.

Which might have something to do with the moratorium currently in effect…

Republicans contend there’s a greater need for the added baseload electrical generation capacity than Democrats will concede.

Democrats also have argued that ratepayers should be protected from immediate construction costs and overruns.

“I’m really concerned about our energy needs in the future,” Peppin said.

Democrats said they’re surprised Republicans are putting such an emphasis on lifting the ban.

“I’m surprised that with the huge challenges that we are facing … that that is one of the priorities they are pursuing as one of their top issues,” said Rep. Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, the House minority leader.

I can see where it might surprise Thissen.

Someone who is actually concerned with real economic growth, on the other hand, might see where inexpensive domestic power might be important for companies that are contemplating doing business in a place that is, frankly, chilly.  Perhaps the DFL believes heat comes from the Heat Fairy; most of us know better.

Jobs Jobs Jobs:  At 2PM – two hours after this post appears – the GOP Caucuses will be announcing their legislative jobs plan.  No details are available as this is written.  Stay tuned.

Think you’ve seen the Best of BTO (So Far) when it comes to the media’s obsession with Michele Bachmann (and vice versa)?  You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Let’s not bury the lede – she isn’t going to run. 

In politics, the rumored presidential campaign for many office holders is a cry for attention about one step removed from binging on aspirin.  For near total unknowns like former Godfather’s CEO Herman Cain or heyday politicos like Rick Santorum, the seeking of the White House is game of trival pursuit.  Lacking resources and with few political options, candidates like these have nothing to lose and everything to gain with a quixotic bid that likely ends in the hometown of Iowa State sometime in early August. 

Bachmann doesn’t lack for attention nor resources, as her $13.4 million campaign haul demonstrated.  But she may lack options.  Hemmed in by Minnesota’ s statewide left tilt, likely ruling out any statewide bid, immediate or otherwise, and having lost out as Chair of the House Republican Conference to Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Bachmann’s present trajectory would be to become the best known backbencher in the history of Congress.

A bid for the presidency likely wouldn’t change that – but a possible bid for president might.

Actually running for president involves far too many “make or break” moments for any candidate, let alone a three-term congresswoman who, despite her numerous media forays over the years, isn’t exactly a household name to the average Iowan or New Hampshirite.  An exploratory committee or even merely a rumored campaign allows Bachmann the best of both worlds.  She can raise copious sums for her Michele PAC, get mentioned in every discussion of the 2012 Republican Primary, dismiss any poll that shows her doing poorly (she isn’t even a candidate, of course) and conversely celebrate any poll that shows her non-campaign campaign gaining momentum.  It’s the Fred Thompson strategy – which worked as long as he wasn’t formally running.

6 or 7 months of presidential media footsie and Bachmann can raise her national name ID even further, stockpile cash, and thus potentially leverage her pull within the House GOP Caucus.  Bachmann hasn’t exactly been embraced by the new House leadership, and the feelings are probably mutual.  It’s hard to ignore the comments and demands of a media saavy politico.  It’s even harder to do so when that politico is seen as gunning for the nomination.

It’s a somewhat deft political move by Bachmann as the end result harms few politicians not named Tim Pawlenty – who suddenly runs the risk of spending the summer of 2011 being known as that other Minnesotan running for president.

I have broken the Tenth Commandment.

Quotes from “the Governor”:

“Under our administration, state government will do only what is necessary – no more, no less,”

[in] his first day in office [the governor authorized his Attorney General] to join a lawsuit challenging federal health care reform. Democrats, who controlled state government until Monday, had prevented the…attorney general from doing that last year.

[the Governor] was interrupted 14 times by applause, the loudest and most sustained coming when he declared: “What is failing us is not our people or our places. What is failing us is the expanse of government. But we can do something about it right here, right now, today.”

[the Governor proposed legislators, in special session, move to] give tax breaks to business owners and income tax credits for contributions to health savings accounts; reduce business regulations; provide protections from lawsuits; give the governor more say in state rule making; turn the state Department of Commerce into a partly private entity to focus on job creation; and require a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of the Legislature to approve any increases to the state sales, income and franchise taxes.

[the Governor] also promised to improve education, protect natural resources, honor the role of family and “right-size state government by ensuring government is providing only the essential services our citizens need and our taxpayers can afford.”

“Let me be clear on one thing: Increasing taxes is off the table – as it will counter our efforts to provide economic growth”

“[This State] is open for business.”

Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Governor.

Meanwhile, back at the Batcave, Governor Dayton was heard to say

“Meow.”

Patrick Ruffini unpacks the real conclusion to be drawn from this week’s census and reapportionment numbers:

[T]his week’s numbers were the most ringing endorsement of the Republican governing model since Rudy Giuliani towered over the vested interests in New York City. Not only did the South and West win — which liberals will dismiss as a function of weather — but low tax states consistently beat high tax states. Not only did conservative states beat liberal states, most tellingly, the winners were almost to a man conservatively governed.

Consider this striking fact unearthed by political strategist (and former Giuliani adviser) Ken Kurson, posted on Facebook:

• Avg tax rate in states gaining a Congressional seat: 2.8%
• Avg tax rate in states losing a Congressional seat: 6.05%

People vote with their feet.

And not entirely because of the weather, although that’ll be what the left attributes the reapportionment to.  Minnesota – which held onto both its eighth house seat for another ten years by the skin of its teeth (perhaps thanks to the fact it held on to fiscal sanity by the same margin) – grew 4%, well off the national average.   North Dakota – which has low taxes and is actively cutting the ones they have – grew by 5%, and income-tax-free South Dakota grew even faster, leading the region.  

Ruffini (with emphasis added):

This finding is relevant to top marginal tax rates, which unlike property or sales taxes more prevalent in redder states punish creation rather than consumption, but the basic finding runs deep throughout the numbers. The big population winners did not just happen to red states with nice weather. They also had a deeply embedded Republican governing model. Consider who governed in the big population-gaining states this year.

• Texas +4 (10 years of Republican governors, 0 Democrat)
• Florida +2 (10 Republican, 0 Democrat)
• Nevada +1 (10 Republican, 0 Democrat)
• Utah +1 (10 Republican, 0 Democrat)
• South Carolina +1 (8 Republican, 2 Democrat)
• Georgia +1 (8 Republican, 2 Democrat)
• Arizona +1 (2 Republican, 8 Democrat)
• Washington +1 (0 Republican, 10 Democrat)

Collectively, that’s 58 years of Republican governance to 22 years of Democratic governance in the states gaining Congressional seats. And Washington State’s impressive record — alone among true blue states — likely had more to do with the little matter that it lacks an income tax, and an initiative this year to impose one was beat back by 2-to-1.

Ruffini notes that the major left-strangled metropolitan areas – the New Yorks and Bostons and Los Angeleses – continued to show some growth; there are benefits to having a large, established commercial sector (or whatever’s left of it) and a throbbing creative class. 

But the reapportionment shows that they only go so far.

Fifty more years of coastal-liberal strangulation and the Democrats just might be a third party yet after all.

Snarlin’ Arlen leaves the Senate.

If Pennsylvania’s forcibly retired senior Senator was in the holiday spirit, he was cleverly hiding it under a guise worthy of Ebenezer Scrooge.  Biding adieu to a 30-year career in the Senate, Specter produced enough whine for a vineyard as he lashed out at the political opponents who toppled him:

In his final speech on the Senate floor, the outgoing Republican-turned-Democrat sounded off on the tea party, the rise of partisanship in Congress and the “judicial activism” of the Supreme Court.

“Defeating your own is a form of sophisticated cannibalism,” the Pennsylvania senator said of the tea party activists who worked to defeat GOP centrists.

Specter bemoaned the loss of a Senate where both parties seemed to be interested in finding compromise, and he was especially critical of lawmakers who campaigned against their fellow members.

“That conduct was beyond contemplation in the Senate I joined 30 years ago,” Specter said. “Collegiality can obviously not be maintained when negotiating with someone simultaneously out to defeat you, especially within your own party.”

In other words – bah humbug!

Specter’s comparison of the GOP to a Uruguayan rugby team has earned him the standard media designation of ex officio Republican division expert due to his status as, well, an ex officio.  Lost in the shuffle seems to be Specter’s actual defeat at the hands of the party that he left 45 years ago when he began his career as Philadelphia’s District Attorney.   By Specter’s own experience, if Republicans are cannibals, then Democrats are toasting Arlen’s farewell speech with Soylent Green.

But in his final mixing of geritol with vitriol, Specter showed precisely why the electorate’s of both major parties found little use for him.  As a man famous for tying his ideological moorings to helium balloons, Specter’s complaint that “senior Republican senators have recently abandoned long-held positions out of fear of losing their seats” rang as hollow as his partisan affiliation.

Some of Specter’s greatest criticism came towards his colleagues who vigorously campaigned against him, apparently violating sacrosanct Senate rules of civility.  Or Scottish law.  Regardless that the leadership in two parties attempted to squeeze him through two different primaries, Specter cast a pale over the lack of Senate comity, stating that such an atmosphere made crafting legislation impossible.

Undoubtbly dying in politics is easy; comity is hard.  But what veterans of the Senate like Specter fail to understand is that most of the comity coming from Washington in recent years is decidedly unamusing to most voters.  From the Patriot Act, to Immigration Reform, TARP and everything in between, almost all the bipartisan solutions have produced bipartisan disgust.  Even the most recent tax compromise has left no one happy and the federal deficit a trillion dollars fatter.  When even Lindsey Graham finds such legislation a  “capitulation”, you know the fetish of compromise has reached its nadir. 

Specter dubbed his final address a “closing argument.”  But in truth, his parting shots were more a case for the prosecution as what Specter really issued was a petty defense of Senate priviledge – and himself.

Britain more conservative now than when Thatcher was PM:

Britain is now more Thatcherite than when Margaret Thatcher was in power, with people much less supportive of the welfare state and the redistribution of wealth than in the 1980s, according to an authoritative study of the country’s mood.

New Labour oversaw the biggest recorded shift to the right in public attitudes on those measures, despite a surge in concern about the scale of the wealth gap between rich and poor.

The British Atlas’s shoulders seem to be itching…:

Sympathy towards benefit claimants has evaporated, along with support for redistributive tax and spend policies, over the past 20 years, with Labour governing during a period of significant hardening of attitudes towards the poor, the annual results of the British Social Attitudes survey reveal.

So there is hope in Europe.

I love this story; a 23 year old waitress is  on her way to the Michigan state legislature:

Diane Okay and Betty Turk were enjoying coffee after a lunch of fish and spinach pie at Ken’s Country Kitchen when they found out their 23-year-old waitress is a state representative-elect.

After a moment of stunned silence, Okay expressed her approval: “Good for her.”

Still, she was a bit skeptical, saying she thought Andrea LaFontaine is a bit young to understand some of the problems Michiganians face.

“I have a son that age, and looking at it from the standpoint of a mother, she doesn’t have a lot of life experience at 23,” Okay said.

Still, if you watch the video (follow the link), Miss LaFontaine has a better understanding of economics than, say, Minnesota’s probable governor-elect and his entire party.

LaFontaine, a Central Michigan University student, beat three other Republicans in the August primary before winning the 32nd District seat over Democratic incumbent Jennifer Haase in the November election.

LaFontaine will be one of the youngest legislators to be sworn into office Jan. 1. Also taking the oath will be 24-year-old Republican Frank Foster of Pellston, who won the 107th District seat vacated by term-limited Democrat Rep. Gary McDowell of Rudyard.

Better yet, when Miss LaFontaine goes to Lansing, she will be a gratifyingly conservative voice of sanity in a state that needs it even more desperately than Minnesota.  Not just because she’s a conservative – although that is the building block of all worthwhile legislators – but because she’s not part of the professional political class.  She’s one of The People.

More of this, please.

Barack Obama has been patting himself on the back now that General Motors has pulled off the largest public offering in history, slamming Republicans who were opposed to the bailout and manufacturing 2012 campaign fodder.

But read this, and you will be informed enough to see right through this success story.

So, let me make sure I understand. Someone invested in a company to use the entire proceeds plus $2 billion more to repay creditors and repay shareholders when the company’s need for cash is so great. The lack of logic is concerning. Perhaps a political motive to repay government funds trumped sound business judgment?

These red flags and perceptions of impropriety during the GM bankruptcy and emergence from bankruptcy are mind-boggling. If this company were not owned by the U. S. government, I am certain the SEC would begin an investigation of the company.

There is no doubt GM, at least in name, is still around because of the Obama administration’s efforts but there is also little doubt that GM would still be around today, albeit after going through a more traditional bankruptcy process.

The difference is, the taxpayer and the original shareholders wouldn’t have taken it up the tailpipe and Barack Obama wouldn’t have another campaign sound bite.

Moreover, the structure of the deal has left GM in a precarious position, forcing them to report what may be unsubstantiated profits while in contrast Ford Motor Company, having truly survived the Great Recession is accelerating under it’s own power and without taxpayer assistance.

Ford is investing in engineering, innovation and design to stay competitive, all of which require enormous amounts of capital. If GM can’t use the proceeds of their IPO to do the same they may soon find themselves slapping Cadillac badges on dressed up Chevy’s again while competitors from Japan, Germany and Korea drink their milkshake.

First, contrary to popular administration folklore, GM did not survive bankruptcy. The name did, but that is all that happened. A new company acquired the name and assets of GM, and is now the company being called GM. I wonder if the GM commercials tracing its history back to the older GM without a disclaimer is being honest with those of us who own it — the American taxpayer.

GM’s profit of $2 billion in this most recent quarter is a little puzzling as well. I can imagine that the financial systems of a large company are difficult to control. But the disclosure statement by GM about its internal controls or lack thereof concerns me.

“We have determined that our disclosure controls and procedures and our internal control over financial reporting are currently not effective. The lack of effective internal controls could materially adversely affect our financial condition and ability to carry out our business plan.”

…but other than that, it’s all good [raises thumb].

Our economy may not be heading for a double dip but GM may very well be and not despite the government’s effort…because of it.

If I were the President of Harvard University, I might wanna have a word with Matt Yglesias.

Matt – a prominent leftyblogger who’s gone on to write for a bunch of liberal rags – has a BA from Harvard.  Like a lot of leftybloggers, he profited from the leftyblog audience’s hive mentality and got promoted far beyond even his Peter Principle value, to say nothing of his actual perception.

And it’s gotta be undercutting the value of that expensive Harvard sheepskin.  Especially when he’s writing bilge like this, about planning ahead for the new GOP majority in Congress:

But the specific thing I would worry about isn’t gutting of health care legislation or endless investigations. It’s the economy. Anne Kornblut reports that the White House understands the basic political dynamic: “Even more important, senior administration officials said, Obama will need to oversee tangible improvements in the economy.”

So I know that tangible improvements in the economy are key to Obama’s re-election chances. And Douglas Hibbs knows that it’s key. And senior administration officials know that its key. So is it so unreasonable to think that Mitch McConnell and John Boehner may also know that it’s key? That rank and file Republicans know that it’s key? McConnell has clarified that his key goal in the Senate is to cause Barack Obama to lose in 2012 which if McConnell understands the situation correctly means doing everything in his power to reduce economic growth. Boehner has distanced himself from this theory, but many members of his caucus may agree with McConnell.

And Yglesias’ conclusion (emphasis added)?

Which is just to say that specifically the White House needs to be prepared not just for rough political tactics from the opposition (what else is new?) but for a true worst case scenario of deliberate economic sabotage.

Truly, truly dreadful.

The left; not only do they believe their ends justify their means, they believe everyone else believes it too.

To: The New GOP Majority in the Legislature

From: Mitch Berg, once-bitten Conservative

Re: The 2011 Session Agenda

Dear GOP House and Senate Caucuses:

Congratulations on the big win two weeks ago.  

Now, we gotta talk.

You have a historic opportunity here; not only do you have the most power of any group of Republicans in recent Minnesota history, but you got there for all the right reasons – atop a swave of populist conservative discontent over the policies of Barack Obama and the Minnesota DFL.

Better still, even if we lose the recount, we’re up against a governor that’d be in a weak position even if he were Hubert H. Humprhey.  And Mark Dayton is no Hubert H. Humphrey.  I’ll be frankly amazed if we’re not reverring to “Governor Prettner-Solon” by 2014; in any case, you have the opportunity to drive this car.

So drive.

I’m just a schlemiel voter.  But since the holidays are coming up, I’d like to give you my legislative wish list.

Go Deep.  Tom Emmer ran on a zero-based budget promise.  It was a great idea; follow through on it.  Pass a budget – over the (rhetorically) dead bodies of the DFL left in the Legislature, if need be – that slashes the fat, initiates zero-based budgeting for the big entitlement programs, guts the pork, and holds the line on spending.  Freeze state worker employees’ salaries until the revenues start picking up (meaning all the rest of us are getting raises again).  

And then, let Dayton – or whomever – veto it. 

And pass it again, with just enough changes to make it fly.

And let him veto it again. 

And pass it again.

And let him veto it, and risk shutting down state government. 

Because the people who sent you to office aren’t the ones that are going to rebel over a government shut-down.

But the ones that sent Dayton to office – real or imagined?  They will.  So when that happens?  Dayton loses.

So do it.

Fix The Election System:  Adopt Voter ID; require some form of identification.  You know the drill – make identification safe, cheap and available – but require every voter to present an ID, and make sure that ID is enterered as part of their signing-in process.

And kill off vouching.  Now.

Wanna appear “bipartisan”?  Keep same-day voting.  With a valid, cross-referenceable ID.  Because if accessible same-day voting is what the DFL really wants, provided we can keep it accountable and fraud-proof, why not?

I don’t think that’s what they really value in same-day voting, but that’s just my opinion.  So far.

And if Dayton wants to get into a fight over the right to carry out invalid, fraudulent elections, so be it!  Let him veto that bill too! Let the DFL stand and fall, statewide, over the right to game the electoral system.

You have a huge opportunity here.  Let’s use it. 

That’s why we sent you there, after all.

UPDATE:  A highly-placed GOP source whom I will not name at the moment writes:

NO Photo ID until every name on the voter registration list is checked for citizenship. There are names on the list of people who are not citizens. They are supposed to be challenged: “Challenged: Citizenship” is stamped right next to their name. Make everyone who gets a voting photo ID card prove citizenship; make it a renewable card every 5 years; the renewal cannot be tied to a driver’s license renewal. The Dept. of Public Safety must clean up all citizenship issues: temporary (those who are supposed to have “status check” on their ids; permanent residents who are not citizens). MN Constitution requires citizenship to vote.

 Yes, eliminate vouching and eliminate same-day registration – zero compromise here…  

Yes, play hardball; show backbone; appeasement doesn’t work – the Dems will never appease – we hold the majority, use it.

Well, it was a rough draft. 

Like everything else on this blog.

In late 2008, Rahm Emanuel made famous the phrase “Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste.” It was an unabashed entreaty to liberals frustrated by years of pent up designs to advance the socialization of America. Obama, Reid and Pelosi wasted no time while a stupefied citizenry watched the unfolding of a theretofore unimagined agenda.

Less than two years later another crisis has presented itself, the nature of which is surely an exception to Rahm’s axiom; a crisis within.

Within the party that is.

A handful of survivors of the electoral razing of the democratic party are not unlike those famous Japanese soldiers hiding in tunnels on remote isles months after V-J Day…

In 1944, Lt. Hiroo Onoda was sent by the Japanese army to the remote Philippine island of Lubang. His mission was to conduct guerrilla warfare during World War II. Unfortunately, he was never officially told the war had ended; so for 29 years, Onoda continued to live in the jungle, ready for when his country would again need his services and information. Eating coconuts and bananas and deftly evading searching parties he believed were enemy scouts, Onoda hid in the jungle until he finally emerged from the dark recesses of the island on March 19, 1972.

Some liberal democrats are figuratively living on Lubang, off the grid, not recognizing that Americans have soundly rebuked the extreme leftist agenda inflicted on them.

Liberals made clear Tuesday what they want from the bipartisan deficit commission — more help for the poor and middle class and bigger corporate tax increases.

Americans made clear that what they want is for their government to get out of the way, to cease disincenting those that would otherwise be spending, borrowing and investing in ways that create jobs for everyone, especially for the poor and middle class.

Mathematically, you can’t increase taxes enough on corporations or the wealthy to make even the slightest dent in the deficit let alone the national debt.  Eventually, either by choice or by force, the federal government will have to cut spending and by extension, entitlements.

Moderate and conservative commission members, who compose the bulk of the panel, have been more circumspect. After co-chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson offered their proposal last week — focused 2 to 1 on spending cuts over tax increases — the commission’s three Republican House members tentatively welcomed their approach.

The Tea Party may have given rise to a Regressive Movement in America, where once and for all, a majority will press the federal government and those it has enslaved by decades of sedimentary entitlements to do more with less, across the board.

…but not without a fight from the hardy few on Lubang.

But liberals were outraged. They tend to favor activist government, help for the needy and higher taxes on wealth to pay for it. Moderates and conservatives are more inclined to reduce government services to cut government debt and are less willing to raise taxes.

Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said: “Democrats should fight loudly and clearly — because the public overwhelmingly wants Democrats to fight that fight.”

Not anymore Adam. The war is over. You can go home now.

If A Conservative orders a pizza in the woods, and no liberal is there to hear him, is he still an “extremist?”

Over this past eight years or so, the Minnesota DFL has deprived the word “extremist” of all meaning.

“Blue Man In A Red District” writes about Glenn Gruenhagen, who won a close race in House District 25A over DFL apparatchik Mick McGuire.

Blue, not unpredictably, refers to Gruenhagen as “extreme“. 

But what does that mean?

How extreme is Gruenhagen?
At a statewide school board association meeting Gruenhagen pushed his extremist agenda.
Resolutions:

Let’s run through the list of “extreme” resolutions and their vote totals from the “State School Board Association” – of whom more later:

Stop labeling and drugging students – 2 for; 103 against.  The empowerment of teachers to make sweeping mental health and behavioral judgments with a power that borders on a medical diagnosis – with none of the expertise or experience or judgment required to make those “diagnoses” – has been an unmitigated disaster for a generation of children, especially boys.  Especially mine.  Anyone who voted against that resolution can rot in hell. 

Emphasize rote learning – 2 for; 130 against: Not sure what Blue means by this; he doesn’t favor us with a link to any original context.  Most of us agree “Rote Learning” – regurgitating factoids on command – is a Bad Thing.  But students today are woefully deficient in some just plain basic facts; I learned the multiplication tables by “rote” – as in, endless hours of drills in fourth grade; my kids did not.   Are they better off for having to find a calculator to find that 9 times 7 is 63?

Implement phonics reading – 8 for; 94 against. It seems to work for many kids.  So sue us.

Teach principles of patriotism – 13 for; 88 against.  THE HORROR.  Seriously –  would it kill kids to know that there’s a reason most of the world wants (or wanted, until 2008) to come to the US?  The changes we wrought and the good we brought to this world?  It’d spawn fewer little DFL drones, but other than that, what’d be the problem?

Oh, wait.

Implement abstinence – 7 for; 95 against.  Wouldn’t wanna stop encouraging teenage effing pregnancy, would we?

Separate classes by gender – 16 for; 86 against. Never mind that it works.  There are not a few charter, and even public, programs that get excellent results by separating the genders.  It’s a politically inconvenient truth that boys and girls are differnet.  They learn differently.  Girls are verbal and social; boys, spatial and competitive.  Both genders do better when they learn in environments that play to those strengths.   The only reasons not to separate genders, indeed, are the inconvenience of teaching teachers who came up through the feminized education academy to deal with boys as boys, and the PC imperative.

Teach fallacies of macro evolution – 7 for; 100 against. That’s one of those extreeeeeemly broad subjects where, again, context might be useful.  Does it mean “teach creationism?”  Or does it mean “show them that the scientific method really has nothing to say about philosophy”, and “science still has no idea how life as we know it really originated”?  We dont’ know.  Is it because the original resolution really was the single line “Teach fallacies of macroevolution”, or was it because Blue didn’t bother to favor us with the original context? 

It’d be fun to know.

All children are gifted – 12 for; 89 against.  Again, not sure about specifics.  Clearly, all children are not “gifted”.  But all children have some “gift” or another.  The public schools aren’t interested in “gifts” that go much beyond “sitting on ones seat and doing homework really really well”, other than tolerating a well-regulated interest in music or art or sports.  The kid whose “gift” is mechanics?   Cooking?  Raising his/her siblings while the parents are at work, and doing it really really well?  Not as much.

Blue:

At his best, 14% of school board association members supported his proposals. And this guy is going to get things done for Greater Minnesota?

Looking at the eight “extreme” resolutions, I’d almost respond “I wonder who the real extremists are…”

…until I remember that in Saint Paul, the monolithic politburo that is the Saint Paul School Board probably would have voted a straight ticket against all of those – and most Minnesotans on the street would have supported five or six without breaking a sweat.

If you’re not an EdMinn/SEIU/DFL drone, your mainstream is what they call “extreme”.

John “Not Jon” Stewart, of the official Clan Stewart blog, Night Writer, finds an analogy I wish I’d beaten him to; re-staging Braveheart with Michele Bachmann as William Wallace, and John Boehner and the GOP establishment as Robert the Bruce and the Scots nobles:

In 1297 the central players in an uneasy alliance were William Wallace, the upstart rebel who shocked and demoralized the English with a dramatic victory in the Battle of Stirling Bridge, and Robert Bruce, the scion of a wealthy and politically powerful Scottish family. In 2010, Republican lion and presumptive Speaker of the House John Boehner plays Robert the Bruce to Michelle Bachmann’s Wallace. Bachmann was out-front for the burgeoning Tea Party movement, driving her enemies to distraction and helping spark a historic Republican rout that changes the balance of power in much the same way that Stirling Bridge did. Her decision to now run for a leadership position in the Republican caucus has been greeted coolly by her nobles. I know there are those who will raise an eyebrow or a guffaw at equating Michelle Bachmann with a figure as historically significant as William Wallace but at the heart of the matter there are similarities.

Bachmann is derided by her enemies (both in and outside the Republican party) for being out-spoken, outrageous and deliberately provocative. That’s pretty much how Wallace was presented in Braveheart: coarse, blunt and sometimes appearing to be making it up as he went along. The way the Scottish nobles fought the English in those days is also not too different from the way the Republican leadership has historically contended with the Democrats: a show of force before the battle which merely sets the stage for a parley in the center of the field that ends in negotiation. When Wallace showed up — nearly unwanted — before one battle he was told to hang back and be quiet. When he rode forward to be part of the parley anyway someone asked him what he was doing and his response was “picking a fight.” The passion and taunts of Wallace and his men discomfited the “civilized” combatants who weren’t expecting to be mooned or to be told that their general could bend over and “kiss his own arse.” Similarly, Bachmann and her unwillingness to “play nice” is barely tolerated by the party elite, while the passion and populism of the Tea Party rallies and town halls has shaken the political professionals and pundits who hope it is an aberration and not a new fact of life.

Rrread the whooole thaing, Jimmeh.

Did you ever wonder why Big Gay spent so much time and effort trying to demonize Target for donating to pro-business (ergo pro-Republican) PACs? 

Well, it certainly wasn’t because, as they claimed, Target was “anti-gay”; even in religiously-“progressive” Minneapolis’s business community, Target has stood out for decades in its support for “progressive” ideals; it’s been one of those “good corporate citizens” that the left always barbers about wanting companies to be.

Partly, of course, was that it didn’t want Twin Cities companies to get the impression that they’re allowed to leave the DFL reservation.  Dictators know you have to keep the peasants in line lest they get uppity.

But at least partly it must be due to the fact that Democratic hold on gay voters juuust might be slipping away from the left:

Gay men, lesbians and bisexuals who self-identified to exit pollsters made up 3 percent of those casting ballots in House races on Tuesday, and 31 percent of them voted Republican. By itself, that number is amazing, especially when you consider that way too many people think being gay and voting Democratic are one in the same. But that percentage is ominous news for a White House viewed with suspicion by many gay men and lesbians, because that’s four percentage points higher than the change election of 2008.

Self-identified gays have been slowly sidling up to the GOP for a while now. In the 2008 presidential race, they made up four percent of the vote and gave 27 percent of their votes to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) against then-Sen. Barack Obama. In the 2006 midterm elections, when the House and Senate flipped to Democratic control, gays made up three percent of the electorate with the Republicans snagging 24 percent of their ballots. And in the 2004 presidential elections, President George W. Bush got 23 percent of the gay vote. They comprised four percent of those polled.

There’s no point in embroidering the fact that one wing of conservatism – the southern, social variety – isn’t especially pro-gay.  The other two wings are much more live-and-let-live about social issues – either through culture or libertarian bent.  

Either way – the idea that gays are finding increasing traction with the conservative message, even despite the inhopitability of one wing of the movement, has got to have Big Gay scared out of its mind:

Jimmy LaSalvia, Executive Director of the gay conservative group GOProud, is heralding the uptick in votes from gay men, lesbians and bisexuals for Republicans.

“The gay left would have you believe that gay conservatives don’t exist. Now we see that almost a third of self-identified gay voters cast ballots for Republican candidates for Congress in this year’s midterm,” continued LaSalvia. “This should be a wake-up call for the out-of-touch so-called leadership of Gay, Inc. in Washington, D.C., which has become little more than a subsidiary of the Democrat Party.”

It’s an exit poll, of course, with a large margin of error.  But those polls have been creeping upward, margins and all, for most of a decade.

So now we control the Legislature in Minnesota, and the House in DC.

So what do we do about it?

Yesterday, I said the new GOP majorities need to “go on the attack”.

Let me be clear; I don’t mean that in the Chicago Democrat/DFL sense of the term.

The GOP was sent to DC and Saint Paul, both, on an epic wave of popular focus on principle – small-government, lower spending, more accountability.

• The GOP in Saint Paul needs to tell the DFL where they can stuff their $38 Billion wish list.  The Dayton “budget plan” needs to be scuppered; a plan similiar to Emmer’s – pared back to current spending plus any increases in revenue that comes from growth, not tax hikes – needs to be pushed.  Hard.  As in the first week.
• And when Dayton vetoes it, they’ll need to pass it again.  As nearly unchanged as possible.  And keep passing it.  Over and over and over.  What are they going to do?  Is Dayton going to cave in – fatally weakening himself with his base (and likely causing him to close down the governor’s office and flee to Vail)?  Or shut down the government, fatally weakening himself with his base and making the GOP go “waaah, waaah, waaah” in mock mourning?
• Vast swathes of state government need to be privatized.
• The budget process needs to be converted to a zero-based sysem – especially heath and human services.  Our current system takes the previous budget, adds the projected increase in need, and factors in inflation – basically a recipe for nothing but budget increases.

One thing the GOP must not do; try to become popular with Lori Sturdevant, Keri Miller and Nick Coleman.  Or compromise with the DFL without exacting two pounds of budget-cutting, spending-slashing, entitlement crushing flesh in return for every pound they give up.

You have the power now. Make it matter, or we’ll find some legislators who will.  We’ve done it once now; we can do it again.

Jeff writing at National Debt Busters writes about the history of the national debt:

How do the Presidential Administrations compare?

President George Washington through President Gerald Ford, Presidents 1-38, 1791-1976

Debt Increase: $707,142,528,417.78

President James Earl Carter, 39th President, 1977-1980

Debt Increase: $276,666,000,000.00

President Ronald Wilson Reagan, 40th President, 1981-1988

Debt Increase: $1,672,127,712,041.16

President George Herbert Walker Bush, 41st President, 1989-1992

Debt Increase: $1,462,282,943,480.50

President William Jefferson Blythe Clinton, 42nd Presidnet, 1993-2000

Debt Increase: $1,609,557,554,365.20

President George Walker Bush, 43rd President, 2001-2008

Debt Increase: $4,899,100,310,608.44

President Barack Hussein Obama, 44th President, 2009-present

Debt Increase: $3,031,935,408,476.43 (as of 10/28/2010 report on TreasuryDirect.gov)

Obama is on track to triple Bush’s already-criminal debt load – and that’s if Obamacare’s bill comes in where they project it will, which it will not.

The new GOP House has its work cut out for it.

Let’s all make sure they get to it.