Republicans, at least nominally, are on the side of taxpayers. spending cuts and growth. Democrats have conveniently admitted they are on the side of those who suck up resources and lobbyists. Contrast and honesty is a good thing.

In an e-mail obtained by ABC News, a top staffer for the key Senate Appropriations subcommittee called for a meeting of lobbyists and interest groups that would be affected by expected cuts to the Labor and Heath and Human Services budget. The Jan. 24 meeting was attended by approximately 400 people, sources told ABC, and served as a "call to arms" for those determined to fight Republican budget cuts.

"One thing everyone should be able to agree on now is that a rising tide lifts all boats, and that a higher [Labor, Health & Human Services] allocation improves the chances for every stakeholder group to receive more funding," the committee staffer for Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, wrote in an e-mail inviting people to the meeting.

...Another source familiar with the meeting said Democrats used the meeting as "an attack on House Republicans."

"They said these evil House Republicans are here and they're going to kill all these programs that support little kids, senior citizens, and health care," the source said. "They're trying to instill the fear of God that Republicans are basically going to blow up all these programs, kill these programs, defund them."

If only the Republicans were as committed to cutting spending as the Democrats claim!

Still, I think Harkin should be thanked for doing such a good job of encapsulating the statist/redistributionist position so nicely. It's time to pick sides and the Democrats need to own the fact they are about taxing and spending. You think they'd have learned from November but apparently not.

As for the Republicans, we need to hold their feet to the fire. On that front, Rand Paul can be very useful. His thoughts on the House budget plan? Not enough, not nearly enough.

"It's really not going to touch the problem," Paul said. "There's a disconnect between Republicans who want a balanced budget but aren't maybe yet brave enough to talk about the cuts to come."

The plan by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., released on Thursday, would cut non-security discretionary spending by $58 billion by the end of fiscal year 2011, which ends on Sept. 30.

In an far-ranging interview aboard the Capitol Subway, Paul embraced the label "true believer" and said staying true to the principles of the Tea Party movement is more important to him than being a Republican. He also refused to rule out a future run for president and suggested it may be time to reduce U.S. force levels in Afghanistan.

Paul has proposed his own plan to cut spending by $500 billion this year. Paul's plan would impose deep across-the-board spending cuts -- including a reduction of 83 percent from the Department of Education, 6 percent from the Department of Defense and the elimination all foreign aid. He considers it just a start.

"I go to a tea party and you know what they say to me? It's not enough. It's not enough. Where's the other trillion you need?" Paul said.

Paul's plan is politically untenable on its own but it's very useful in dragging the GOP to the right before the inevitable compromise is struck. Yes, there will be a compromise, it's called politics. It's also called "reality" because the Democrats still have control of 2 of the 3 other institutions that need to sign off on a budget plan. The trick is not to pretend that we won't have to compromise but to start pretty far out there so that when you do cut a deal, it's on your terms. Paul's budget plan and his full throated defense of it will force (hopefully) the rest of the party to the right on spending and create pressure on them not to cave in too much in the end.

Believe it or not but getting the GOP elected was the easy part. It's forcing them to live up to what they said they would do that will be hard.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:59 AM | Comments (126)
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Those Chinese tiger moms must be doing something right:

From the latest Bureau of Labor Standards release (much more on unemployment to come in a bit).

Posted by: Geoff at 06:06 AM | Comments (125)
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There was some chatter about the possibility that Justice Kagan would recuse herself from ObamaCare cases, making a 4-4 decision (and the messy consequences that follow) a possibility. As I wrote in comments yesterday, don't bet on it. Here's the relevant recusal statute, found by beedubya yesterday:

Twenty-eight U.S. Code 455 : "(a) Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned. (b) He shall also disqualify himself in the following circumstances: ... (3) Where he has served in governmental employment and in such capacity participated as counsel, adviser or material witness concerning the proceeding or expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy."

There's nothing in there that suggests a reasonable possibility of recusal when either the Virginia lawsuit or the multi-state lawsuit reaches the Supreme Court. In her job as Solicitor General, she wouldn't have participated in the healthcare cases in the ordinary course. The SG's office doesn't get involved until after a loss in the appellate courts. Before that it's the Assistant AG and Deputy AGs of whichever division the case happens to be in (for example, Civil, Criminal, Antitrust, etc.).

Similarly, she followed the practice of all current justices and "expressed no opinion" on the constitutionality of pretty much anything during confirmation hearings. I haven't seen her mention it elsewhere either.

It's possible the White House or Congress asked her advice on the healthcare law outside of her responsibilities as Solicitor General. But not probable.

Anyway, we already have a pretty good idea whether Justice Kagan will recuse herself from the healthcare lawsuits. Court watchers will recall that one of the lawsuits, Baldwin v. Sebelius, already reached the Supreme Court and she didn't recuse herself from the denial of certiorari.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:44 AM | Comments (83)
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We were discussing the pros and cons of winged vigilantes. What's your stand?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:05 AM | Comments (152)
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The United States of Surnames

Researchers at National Geographic have created a map of the US showing the most common last names in each area:

A new view of the United States based on the distribution of common last names shows centuries of history and echoes some of America's great immigration sagas. To compile this data, geographers at University College London used phone directories to find the predominant surnames in each state. Software then identified the probable provenances of the 181 names that emerged.

And to see the frequency of your last name around the world (down to the county level) check out the interactive map at PublicProfiler. They squeeze you for some email address but it's well worth it. Actually you can just leave the email field blank.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:05 PM | Comments (719)
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A former progressive explains in an open letter how RedEye turned him on to conservatism. And then on to the harder stuff, like Fox News. Now he's into Andrew Breitbart and Ann Coulter on a regular basis.

My conversion from raging liberal to conservative didn’t happen overnight, though it may appear to some as if it had. I also realize no one at Fox News cares one whit what my political affiliations are, as long as I watch. But that’s the point. After my first “Red Eye” episode, I became a Fox News junkie.

It was while visiting friends who were “Red Eye” watchers that I saw my first show. The day I returned home, the very first thing I did when I’d finished unpacking was to turn on Fox News. I started paying attention.

At first, this was solely because I wanted more information on the stories they might cover on that night’s “Red Eye.” Then, it was because I found the opinions and stories covered on FNC refreshing and, ultimately, eye-opening.

I reached out to people like Andrew Breitbart. I discovered a warm, genuine human being who was working hard to push values in which he truly believed, and to open the eyes of everyday Americans as to how they were being duped by the mainstream media. I saw Ann Coulter unedited by leftists who hated her for the first time, and discovered she was warm, witty and highly sarcastic; all traits I highly admire.

Now, Breitbart and Coulter are two of my very favorite conservative personalities.

Read the rest. He goes on to explain his RedEye withdrawal when the show is preempted by so-called "updates" and "breaking news." That is somethig I can identify with. I get irritable when RedEye isn't on. I send snarky tweets. Newsflash: It ain't an update if it goes on for an hour. Updates last, like, 30 seconds, maybe a minute at the outside. And breaking news is about new news. Not news that has been on all day. And I always find myself asking the same kinds of questions he does, "Why didn't they interrupt the O'Reilly repeat or one of the other shows?" (Not Special Report, though.)

Via Big Hollywood.

Posted by: rdbrewer at 05:23 PM | Comments (118)
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We really need this to happen quickly, because we're not going to gain any Supreme Court justices while Obama's in office. On the other hand, people do get sick, retire, or die on the job.

Especially with the left calling for riots and stringing justices up.

Cuccinelli wants the matter resolved.

Cuccinelli (R) said that conflicting court decisions about the law's constitutionality have created sufficient uncertainty about implementation of the sweeping law to justify speeding Supreme Court review.

The Justice Department will oppose the motion, saying that the case should be fully heard by lower courts before the Supreme Court takes action.

Posted by: Ace at 02:44 PM | Comments (147)
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Please, someone in the GOP, please put 2 and 2 together for the American public and stress this is the woman Obama delegated his stimulus-construction to.

AllahPundit goofs on Democrats for always deciding that their problem is "messaging." Not failure, not Americans rejecting their ideas, but "messaging." Just not writing a good enough jingle to sell the product.

Although in many cases this is probably liberals lying about the underlying reasons for their failure, in other cases -- like Nancy Pelosi's -- I think it's probably the case that she's insane and stupid enough to believe it.

And, I repeat: Doctor Nancy Pelosi, PhD emeritus and current occupant of the Hastings Chair of Hyperdimensional Economics from the University of Fucking Pluto, is who Obama let write our trillion-dollar stimulus.

Posted by: Ace at 01:53 PM | Comments (88)
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This is actually the reason. Many of us saw this coming, or at least the likelihood of it.

Call it the "catharsis theory."

Let's say you have a girlfriend (or a wife, or husband). She's really bugging you with ... oh, say her profligate spending! You drop hint after hint and she doesn't stop. Finally, after the latest credit-card bill arrives, you blow up. You yell at her for half an hour. You cut her credit card in half. She puts forward a vigorous, all-too-familiar defense but then seems to accept the new situation.

What happens after that? I'd say you feel better about her almost instantly. You've made your point. You've set up some restraints to limit future damage, spendingwise. Hey, there were always lots of things you liked about her! She knew what they were. Now she knows what you don't like about her. Maybe she'll change.

Then, as the weeks go by, she doesn't go on any more spending binges! She seems to have learned the lesson.

...

Once [the credit-card cutting-up that was the 2010 elections] was over, they liked Obama better, without him having to do anything. In fact, his approval rating in the polls started to turn around almost immediately, in November when he still appeared to be figuring out how to react. (Daley wasn't named until January, for example.) He'd been administered his lesson.

If, as the weeks pass, he seems to have actually learned the lesson, he'll only become more popular. Voters don't have to know anything about his chief of staff, under this theory. They don't care that Biden's new top aide is the former head of the centrist DLC. They don't have to like Jeffrey Immelt or crave "green" cars or think "win the future" is an inspirational phrase. They just have to sense that Obama has stopped doing that thing that pissed them off.

Yup, that's it.

Takeaway? People still like the idea of Obama, but not the real Obama. So long as Obama is backed into a ceremonial corner and thus not doing much, they can pretend the idea of Obama is the real Obama.

I guess the tactic must be to confront him early and often and make him lay down markers showing where he stands -- the real Obama, the one people don't like.

I continue to think it's time to start getting personal, and start talking about Obama in terms, as I said before, of "cowardice" and "betrayal." Because the poll number still seem to indicate that 50% or so of the country still basically likes him, even if they don't like what he does, and that will cause them to give him a pass on all his misdeeds. As people do for their friends and family.

Posted by: Ace at 12:52 PM | Comments (185)
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Pretty good.

Thanks to Monty.

Posted by: Ace at 12:37 PM | Comments (38)
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