Indeed, we’re approaching the one-year mark and there remain more questions than answers on the events in Libya that night. Unfortunately, these answers may be hard to come by in the near future, if at all.  Save for the entire investigation being taken over by a Select Committee, the State Department is up to its neck in fraud and corruption of its own. Cover-ups “from prostitution charges to drug rings,” according to a CBS News article published June 10th. “CBS News reports that is has unearthed documents from the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), an internal watchdog agency, that implicate the State Department in a series of misconducts worldwide.”  These include charges of tampering with investigations of its own personnel.

Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to view more cartoons by McKee)

The fog engulfing the Obama administration and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s actions preceding, during, and in response to the terrorist attack in Benghazi that left four Americans dead including Ambassador Chris Stevens and two former Navy SEALS has thinned only minutely. An attack that then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice – who President Obama just nominated to replace Tom Donilon as National Security Adviser – originally blamed on a “spontaneous” street riot and “protest” by Muslims upset over a crude anti-Muhammad Youtube video created by an American.

While President Obama refused to acknowledge the involvement of terrorists with at least suspect connections to Al Qaeda in press conferences in the weeks following the attack, it was quickly revealed that no such street protest took place. It was in fact a coordinated blitz executed without prompting from a sparsely-viewed Youtube video but from an organized and premeditating group of terrorists on the 11th anniversary of September 11, 2001.

The attack brought some rather serious accusations against President Obama and then-Secretary Clinton, including their dubious declination for increased consulate security as requested by the diplomats stationed there. There are also questions about the lack of military response and assistance after the State Department received a distress email but no help was sent.

Nine months later, and these allegations have yet to be put to bed to the satisfaction of the American people. In fact, the majority of Americans believe the Obama Administration is hiding something when it comes to Benghazi, per a recent CBS/New York Times poll.

The perpetrators – who took credit for their work via Facebook – are still at large, despite Obama’s promise to “bring justice to the killers.” For anyone concerned with uncovering the truth about Benghazi, all of this suggests unequivocally that light needs to be shed on much more information and also that the State Department is in no condition to investigate itself on this matter. But thus far, that’s exactly what it’s been doing.

The families and loved ones of those slain in September, and the American people, deserve better. Before what little evidence is left disappears, it’s time to create a Select Committee and get long overdue answers as to what happened in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. The majority of the Republican majority in the House of Representatives supports this effort; it’s time for Congressional leadership to join them and make a Select Committee happen.

This week we saw President Obama’s henchmen take Clinton’s playbook out for a spin and scurrilously attack Congressman Darrell Issa who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and who has been investigating the Obama Administration.  Former White House Senior Advisor David Plouffe took to twitter and said this about Chairman Issa, “Strong words from Mr Grand Theft Auto and suspected arsonist/insurance swindler. And loose ethically today.”  You know why people hate Washington so much… it is because of people like David Plouffe.  To charge a sitting Member of Congress of two crimes in 140 characters reeks of the hyper partisanship Americans hate.

Then you have David Axelrod, another former White House Senior Advisor attacking Chairman Issa saying that he is taking the Republican Party “over the cliff” with his investigation of the IRS scandal.   Mr. Axelrod followed up that charge by saying there is real “danger” for the Republican Party in pursuing the investigation.  It is crystal clear that the Obama Administration and its band of surrogates want to attempt delegitimize a legitimate investigation of Big Government overreach and abuse of power.

With both Mr. Plouffe and Mr. Axelrod spewing lies on behalf of President Obama, it should not be a surprise that White House Press Secretary Jay Carney would do the same thing.  Just this week Mr. Carney said, “We believe that congressional oversight is important, when it is legitimate.  This is a matter that should be looked at by Congress, through the process of legitimate congressional oversight.”  Looks like everybody in Obama World received the same talking points.

Congressman Issa is trying to get to the bottom of what happened at the IRS and how it was so politicized.  What is the Obama Administration trying to hide?  With new revelations coming out daily it is clear that there is a systemic problem at the IRS and how the Obama Administration has dealt with the ongoing scandal.  Unlike in the 1990s where the big Clinton scandal revolved around a 20 something year old intern, what the IRS allegedly has done takes us back to the dark days of Watergate.

The Clinton playbook worked in an age before Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.  Now citizen journalists of all stripes can wade through the muck and come to their own conclusions without the spin of the mainstream media.  The Obama Administration is trying in vain to use the Clinton playbook but I have a hunch the American people will regulate it to the ash heap of history.

Randy Bish / Pittsburgh Tribune Review (click to view more cartoons by Bish)

In Washington when an inflammatory scandal such as this first breaks, things move very fast.  These initial moments are the reason why phrases like “the cover-up is worse than the crime” and “what did he know and when did he know it” were born.  These are the moments when people talk to get their stories straight.  These are the moments when documents can disappear.  These are the moments when investigators must be ready.

Chairman Issa does not support the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the IRS scandal, stating “When I can’t do my job because I lack the authority or cooperation, I’ll seek additional remedies.”  That statement sounds rational, until you consider the full picture.  First of all, Congress can’t indict, try, and convict.  Congress can simply hold public hearings and report facts, something they should continue doing.  Chairman Issa knows his congressional investigation can only go so far.  On the criminal investigation side of the ledger, the only thing we know for sure is that Attorney General Eric Holder is running it.

Does anyone think that Mr. Holder, who serves at the pleasure of President Obama, is running an aggressive investigation of his boss’ IRS and its political targeting?   Knowing all this, how can anyone be against the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the IRS in an independent manner?   The best formula for this case is for a public congressional investigation and a criminal investigation by a special counsel to exist simultaneously.   Will an ongoing criminal investigation by a special counsel perhaps limit access to witnesses for a congressional committee?  The answer is yes, but Eric Holder’s criminal investigation is already doing that.  The most important thing that can happen going forward is to get this criminal investigation out of the Justice Department because it has a clear conflict of interest in this case.

Until that happens, it’s up to Chairman Issa to act aggressively because Attorney General Holder cannot be trusted to move his investigation quickly.  If he hasn’t already, Mr. Issa should issue subpoenas to the White House and IRS for all communications between the two since the beginning of the Obama Administration.  Who from the IRS visited the White House and vice versa?   Who met regularly and why?  Who spoke on the phone regularly and why?  Who emailed regularly and why?  The White House subpoena should also ask for all documents in the possession of the Executive Office of the President relating to tax-exempt organizations.

In addition, a subpoena should also be sent to the Justice Department and FBI asking for all communications between these organizations and the White House since the scandal broke.  This subpoena should also inquire as to if the IRS Inspector General ever informed the Justice Department or FBI of his pending investigation before it became public knowledge and what actions were taken as a result.  Finally, all White House and other administration officials potentially involved should be asked or compelled to take a deposition under oath.  The more time that elapses, the more time you give people to get their “stories” straight.

For Chairman Issa, time is of the essence.  In the meantime, certain Members of Congress should rethink their opposition to a special counsel.

Rick McKee / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by McKee)

He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavoured to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposes not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.

Was President Barack Obama or his White House staff aware the IRS was targeting Tea Party and conservative-leaning organizations and purposefully delaying their approval process for non-profit status?  If he didn’t know, he could go down as the most incompetent president in our nation’s history.

First, the IRS blamed these acts on a few rogue employees in their Cincinnati, Ohio office.  Then yesterday, the White House changed their story, noting that Counsel to the President Kathryn Ruemmler told Obama Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and other top administration officials last month.  They claim the President was never notified about these egregious actions loaded with the potential to rock his administration to its core.

The Washington game of the ever-changing story has begun and this is clearly only the tip of the iceberg.  As the IRS was busy auditing new organizations such as True the Vote, and long-established conservative training groups like Morton Blackwell’s Leadership Institute, they were also illegally leaking the confidential tax records of 31 groups to a George Soros-funded media operation, ProPublica.  Recently ousted IRS Chief Steven Miller, the poster boy for bad government, admitted Tuesday in the Senate Finance Committee hearing that these actions were “absolutely” partisan.   Does all this sound like just the work of a couple employees in Cincinnati?

Now, Lois Lerner, the director of the IRS division who received lavish bonuses while singling out conservative groups, invoked her Fifth Amendment rights on Wednesday when she appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to avoid self-incrimination.  The actions taken by the IRS are a full frontal assault on America’s cherished free speech rights and a blatant abuse of power.  There is a major scandal here which needs an independent and thorough investigation, but without the appointment of a Special Counsel, the investigation will remain under the purview of President Obama’s own Attorney General Eric Holder.  The American people must demand an investigation of the IRS that is not conducted by Obama’s own loyalists.

Because we cannot trust the Obama Administration to investigate itself, Citizens United and I are proud to endorse the letter written by Rep. Matt Salmon of Arizona and 35 other Members of Congress, which calls for a Special Counsel to fully investigate the practice of targeting groups based on their political persuasion. The person leading this effort must have impeccable credentials and a reputation for impartiality.  Immediate action must be taken before damning evidence mysteriously starts to disappear.

Ultimately, this is a vivid example of why big government does not work.  Where does the power of the IRS end?  We now learn they also wanted copies of private Facebook posts, transcripts of Tea Party rally speeches, and even information about the content of prayers.  And to top it all off, in 2014, the IRS will hire 16,000 agents to enforce Obamacare and allow this hyper-partisan agency to have access to your medical history.

Our federal tax code is a mess and is being abused by the Obama Administration to silence conservatives using the most corrupt tactics imaginable.  It is time to investigate, eliminate the IRS, and move to a Fair Tax.

Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to view more cartoons by McKee)

In yesterday’s press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, President Obama said he was ‘concerned’ over the ‘outrageous’ IRS news and that he didn’t want the IRS to be perceived as biased. The President claimed he has no patience with what happened and that he wants to know exactly what occurred. With that in mind, we demand President Obama cooperate fully with any and all investigations into the matter, including requests from Congress for more information.  After witnessing the failure of the State Department’s internal investigation into the Benghazi terrorist attacks, the President should be fully supportive of all investigations looking at these charges, including, but not limited to, the Inspector General at the IRS.

It was just last Friday that we learned the shocking news that the IRS has been targeting conservative groups for years.  This politicization of the IRS cannot be tolerated by the American people. To single out groups because they offer a different point of view from the Obama Administration’s harkens back to the dark days of the Nixon Administration. The Obama Administration’s obsession with winning – at any cost – has spread Chicago-style politics throughout the federal government and we see it in this admission by the IRS.  You might say that Saul Alinsky would approve.

It appears to have started around the time President Obama criticized the United States Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. FEC during his 2010 State of the Union Address.  With that unprecedented attack on the High Court, he set the tone for the rest of the federal government. The Washington Post has reported the IRS singled out groups for extra attention since the Citizens United vs. FEC decision:

“The appendix of the inspector general’s report – which was requested by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and has yet to be publicly released – chronicles the extent to which the IRS’ exempt organizations division kept redefining what sort of ‘social welfare’ groups it should single out for extra attention since the 2010 Supreme Court ruling Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.”  House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi appeared to pour gas on the fire when she called for Citizens United to be overturned as she condemned the new IRS scandal in a press release.
These questionable actions by the IRS raise legitimate concerns about the culture of the federal government ahead of the full implementation of Obamacare, which gives the IRS information about individuals’ medical conditions and other private health information. As this scandal continues to expand, it is incumbent upon Congress to conduct a full and complete bipartisan investigation into those who may have targeted their fellow Americans purely for political purposes and hold them accountable.  This is the same government that will soon be involved with your personal healthcare decisions, so every American should pay close attention as this gross government overreach develops.

Gary McCoy / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by McCoy)

This week will be pivotal for the Benghazi investigation.  The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will receive testimony from two State Department whistle-blowers and a third State Department employee about the events surrounding the attack and the Obama Administration’s response in the hours, days, and weeks that followed.

I applaud the work of Chairman Darrell Issa and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.  Back in the 1990s, I was the Chief Investigator of that same committee and know what a challenge it is to conduct thorough and effective investigations.  However, it has been three months since any Congressional committee has conducted an extensive hearing into the attack, and seven months since Chairman Issa’s committee held one.  With the revelations coming out over the last week regarding Benghazi, my resolve has only grown stronger about the need for a Select Committee to get to the bottom of what happened nearly eight months ago.

Just over the weekend, FOX News broke a story that the State Department’s current counter terrorism deputy coordinator for operations – Mark Thompson – will testify as a whistleblower.  FOX reported Mr. Thompson will tell the committee that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to cut the counterterrorism bureau “out of the loop” while the Benghazi attack was unfolding.  Why?  It is believed Mr. Thompson will say to the committee that Secretary Clinton as well as others in the Obama Administration were trying to figure out how to “respond” and how to “characterize” the attack that took the lives of four Americans.

In addition to what FOX News reported over the weekend, Stephen Hayes at The Weekly Standard reported on how the Obama Administration’s own talking points were scrubbed of the truth.  The final talking points were watered down so much that they did not give at all a clear picture as to what happened.  One of the original talking points scrubbed at the behest of the State Department was, “we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al Qa’ida participated in the attack.”  Did this talking point draw the ire of the State Department because it ran in the face of the narrative they were pushing?

Two weeks ago Speaker of The House John Boehner said, “The reason I haven’t called for a select committee yet is that I don’t think it’s risen to that level.”  As we have seen over the last week it is clear that the State Department and the Obama Administration as a whole have been holding back on Benghazi.  Mr. Speaker, with all due respect it has risen to that level and a Select Committee must be convened at the earliest possible date.

Citizens United has been leading the charge for a Select Committee to investigate the Benghazi terrorist attack. Sponsored by Virginia Congressman Frank Wolf, House Resolution 36 has the broad support of 138 and growing fellow House Members.  Although the mainstream media would like to say a Select Committee is politically motivated, reality is the committee has been long overdue, and would give the investigation the stature and attention it deserves.

Clearly the Obama Administration wants to move past Benghazi and now we are beginning to learn why.  White House Press Secretary Jay Carney just said last week Benghazi happened “a long time ago.”  This is code for friends in the press to please move on there is nothing to see here.  The families of the victims and those who were injured want answers now and they have waited long enough.  The Select Committee has been endorsed by the mother of Sean Smith and the father of Ty Woods both of whom were murdered in Benghazi.

I believe we only have scratched the surface into the events surrounding Benghazi.  It is time to get answers for once and for all.

Steve Sack / Minneapolis Star-Tribune (click to view more cartoons by Sack)

But the reality for former members of the armed forces is often a multiple-year wait for claims to be filed through the Veterans Administration for health benefits and retirement pay. VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, who said in a recent interview that “[n]o veteran should have to wait for claims” and is himself a retired four-star general, created a 2000 percent backlog increase for applications for veterans’ benefits, with 900,000 unprocessed disability claims remaining today. By the VA’s own projections, that number will quickly surpass 1,000,000.

According to the Center for Investigative Reporting, that unimaginable backlog means every day, 53 soldiers die needlessly at the hands of bureaucrats and red tape while waiting in line for basic service. If those claims are ever processed, the error rate in paperwork is 14%, with some cities like Baltimore and Detroit reporting far worse statistics.

The problem is hardly due to lack of funding. Secretary Shinseki has said repeatedly that he has more than adequate resources to fix the problem and the “buck stops” with him. While some federal departments have dealt with cuts and furloughs, the VA received $25 billion in additional funding since 2009. And apparently, no amount of money can fix an outdated computer system which does not allow our troops to seamlessly move from the military to the VA, even after $1 billion of your tax dollars was spent on supposed “upgrades.” Today, only 3% of claims have been digitally converted, leaving the other 97% to old-fashioned physical paperwork, with single cases taking up thousands of pages.

After returning from combat, the problems for our troops are endless. Mental diseases, domestic abuse, drug abuse, home foreclosures, and even homelessness are far too common among veterans trying to return to civilian life. And because of these issues, employers are frequently unwilling to take the risk and hire veterans, which is why the unemployment rate for post-9/11 vets is 9.4%.

President Obama, who campaigned on a platform of bringing our troops home, clearly had no serious plan about what to do when they came home. The Obama Administration only compounded the issue by rightfully allowing Vietnam Veterans to adjust their claims for injuries resulting from Agent Orange, without having a reasonable structure for processing those amended claims first.

To treat military veterans and their families this way is a national disgrace.  And as tens of thousands of troops demobilize in the next 2 years, the situation will only get worse for these American patriots.  If Shinseki was running a corporation, his board of directors would have been dismissed long ago. The inability to organize veterans services across the country and to misuse so much taxpayer money while veterans wait hundreds of days for service is unacceptable.

If President Obama is interested in accountability, results, and keeping promises, he should ask for Secretary Shinseki’s resignation and find someone else to lead VA.

As reported in the Wall Street Journal, Perez is in hot water for conducting official business using his private Verizon email address in his current position as the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights.  When asked by congressional investigators about the use of his email to work with lawyers of St. Paul, Minnesota to stop a Supreme Court case which threatened to nullify a questionable legal enforcement mechanism for housing discrimination, Perez responded on March 22: “I don’t have any recollection of having communicated via personal email on this matter.”  But as it turns out, he used that personal address almost 1,200 times! Not only is this a clear violation of the Federal Records Act, it is one of America’s chief law enforcement officials apparently lying under oath and violating the trust of the American people.

Perez, through his work with the ACORN-associated Casa de Maryland, worked to assist illegal immigrants in breaking the law by setting up day labor camps. This group encouraged illegal immigrants to avoid answering questions to immigration agents or police officers, favored driver licenses for illegals, and even discouraged police departments from enforcing federal fugitive warrants. Someone who does not respect America’s laws is the last person we need serving as Labor Secretary.

Thomas Perez has also waged war against people of faith and the pro-life movement. For example, he brought a case against Mary Susan Pine in Florida Federal Court. Pine is a woman who for more than two decades engaged in friendly sidewalk counseling for women seeking abortions in West Palm Beach. While engaging in this ministry, Ms. Pine was notified by police that she had violated city and state traffic laws on one particular day, then the Justice Department brought charges under Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE). However, because FACE allows an exemption for peaceful demonstration, it was immediately tossed out of court and Perez’s division was charged court and attorney fees.

In addition, he joined in the Federal case that tried to tell Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church in Michigan who they can hire for religious instruction, which turned into a landmark Supreme Court decision involving religious liberty. It was a case involving a teacher who left on a medical disability, but wanted her job back. When the school informed her that a new teacher was hired, she wanted to sue based on discrimination, but the court tossed the case out 9-0, ruling that churches are exempt from discrimination laws.  That means not only did the conservative Justices dismiss his arguments, but so did the liberal wing of the Supreme Court. His legal arguments were too radical and outlandish even for Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The nomination of Thomas Perez to be Labor Secretary will be voted in the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee later this week. Moderate Democrat Senators like North Carolina’s Kay Hagan, Pennsylvania’s Robert Casey and Colarado’s Michael Bennet should be held accountable for their committee vote.

Thomas Perez’s track record at the Department of Justice shows that he is unfit for this cabinet post.

Since 2009, the number of those bureaucrats has increased by 13 percent.  And in five years, those different departments have wasted little time imposing 106 major regulatory changes, costing the private sector economy at least $46 billion, in addition to incalculable implementation costs.  Right now, sixty federal departments, commissions, and agencies have more than 4,000 regulations at various stages of implementation, which will only serve to damage our weak economy, with thousands more suggested in President Obama’s exorbitant budget.

Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by Allie)

President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency has been especially inventive in creating regulatory law. And their latest technique, known as “sue-and-settle,” is outrageous and dishonest.

Sue-and-settle involves collusion between the EPA and far-left environmental extremist groups which often employ former EPA employees.  When those organizations, such as the Center for Biological Diversity, file a lawsuit against the EPA, the agency is quick to coordinate and settle a case they could otherwise win. Then, the EPA argues that, because of limited resources, the agency must be afforded the discretion to dictate how these limited resources are used.  This process creates a new regulation through court ordered “consent decrees.”

Some state Attorneys General have been fighting against this practice, where rules are created without allowing for input from the public and no standard cost-benefit analyses take place. In fact, the rules are not even published, which is quite unfair to every business trying to follow the law and remain profitable.

Not only is this a way of creating law from behind the bench, it is a way to transfer your tax dollars into the pockets of those “Big Green” groups’ lawyers. According to a 2011 GAO report requested by Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, between 1995 and 2010, groups such as Earthjustice, the Sierra Club, and the National Resources Defense Council have collected more than $4,000,000 million in legal fees just for lawsuits filed under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.  Apparently, enforcing your radical ideology on everyone and harming small-businesses is a cash cow.

It is coming to light that EPA chief Lisa Jackson, who resigned on February 19 of this year, probably did so because she was using her personal email account with a pseudonym “Richard Windsor” to coordinate official business with groups suing the EPA. If true, such coordination is a brazenly illegal act.

This month, Senator Chuck Grassley and Representative Doug Collins are introducing The Sunshine for Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act, which would end the practice of enacting federal regulations through the courts.

The Sunshine for Regulatory Decrees and Settlements Act would require all agencies to report their intent to sue and report the case results to congress. This legislation also would slow down the process, allowing any party which would be negatively affected by new rules is involved in the settlement process. In addition, because elections matter, future Presidents would have the right to reconsider the agreement after seeing what harm the rules did to the economy.

It is time to limit the EPA’s ability to create law from the courtroom and end this lucrative cash cow.

Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to view more cartoons by McKee)

One of my favorite quotes by Margaret Thatcher is from 1981 at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, where she said:

“To me consensus seems to be —the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no-one believes, but to which no-one objects. —the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead.”  What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner ‘I stand for consensus’?”

Now more than ever do these words ring true.  Many conservative Members of Congress should have this poignant statement seared into their brains.  What Margaret Thatcher was getting at is conservatives must stand for their beliefs, and not compromise them for the sake of compromising.

Born a grocers daughter, Margaret Thatcher came up through a middle class family.  Unlike some in British politics, she was not part of the aristocracy and rose through the ranks of the Conservative Party to eventually become the first and only woman Prime Minister.  She was a trailblazer who not only took on socialist thought in her native England, but also took the Soviet Threat head-on.  She actually got her moniker “The Iron Lady” from the Soviet press.

Margaret Thatcher, President Ronald Reagan, and Pope John Paul II made it their mission to rid the world of Communism and they succeeded with the fall of the Soviet Union.  The three formed a resolute triad that broke through the Iron Curtain and would bring democracy to millions of people.  When newly minted Czech Republic President Vaclav Havel visited Great Britain for the first time after the fall of Communism, Margaret Thatcher said:

“Mr. President, nothing has more distinguished and dignified our age than the struggle for human rights and freedom in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. It was a campaign conducted against tremendous, sometimes overwhelming odds; it demanded courage and conviction of the highest order.”

Lady Thatcher should have looked into a mirror when speaking those words because she encapsulated them as well.  Citizens United Production released Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous with Destiny four years ago where we looked at how the relationships between Thatcher, Reagan, and Pope John Paul II shaped the world for the better.  In the documentary you hear from the people who were there like Vaclav Havel who give an intimate portrait of how these three exceptional leaders stared down Communism.

Margaret Thatcher was the last of the triad to pass on.  She will go down as one of the greatest British Prime Ministers to have ever lived.  A title she did not seek, but one she earned for what she has done for liberty for both her own countrymen and those who were oppressed by Communism.

Taking all of this into consideration, I decided to help Google make that all-too-difficult decision by making a list of my own. Here are some dates of holidays (thanks to Wikipedia) coming up later this year and some suggestions for Google to help make this incredibly tough decision infinitely easier:

On May 18th instead of recognizing Armed Forces Day, Google could promote the birthday of Czar Nicholas II of Russia.

On May 27th, when most Americans are celebrating Memorial Day, Google should recognize the 1933 release of Disney’s The Three Little Pigs instead.

Instead of waving Old Glory on Flag Day on June 14th, Google could protest President Eisenhower’s signing of the bill that put “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.

On July 4th, Google staff could highlight instead the founding of the city of Trois-Rivieres in Quebec in 1634.

On September 2nd, the Google brain trust could make a super-doodle honoring the birth of super-actor Keanu Reeves. Labor Day can wait.

On October 14th, when most Americans commemorate Columbus Day, Google could either belittle President Reagan’s 1982 announcement of the War on Drugs or vividly recall the 1981 election of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. Take your pick.

November 11th, is the day when our heroic veterans are honored. Yasser Arafat’s death should get the Google treatment instead.

November 28th, is the day for giving thanks and being with family. Instead the Google squad could hold a parade to remember the day when East Timor declared independence from Portugal in 1975.

After remembering Cesar Chavez on Easter Sunday, the Google team should break with tradition and celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on December 25.

Sarcasm aside, it really is a shame that Google thinks it is a “difficult decision” whether to highlight a holiday worshipped by over two billion people or not.  This isn’t the first time this has happened at the company, and most likely won’t be the last.  Google is a powerful force on the web, and conveniently forgetting the Easter holiday is shameful.

Nate Beeler / Columbus Dispatch (click to view more cartoons by Beeler)

Seven years later, with America over $16.7 trillion in debt, President Obama has added more to that number than every President since George Washington combined. And the debt ceiling continues rising to outer space.

To combat this, along with the more than 500,000 members and supporters of Citizens United nationwide, I support the “Full Faith and Credit Act” (H.R. 807 and S. 46). Citizens United is proud to stand with the Republican Study Committee in their endorsement of this important bill, being sponsored by Representative Tom McClintock of California and Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

America’s elected leadership is set to embark upon another heated debate over raising the debt ceiling, our government’s statutory borrowing limit. With partisan gridlock regrettably expected in the run up to the deadline, it is critical for the American economy that we preserve the nation’s creditworthiness. This can only happen by eliminating the potential of default on all federal debt obligations.

If the debt ceiling isn’t raised on time, the Full Faith and Credit Act will require the first payments made by United States Treasury would always be on existing debt. Because the Office of Budget and Management (OBM) estimates the federal government brings in approximately 10 times more than its liabilities, this will require the Federal government to use its substantial resources to pay creditors in full and on time.

Last time we had this debate, thanks to the excessive discretion given to the White House, President Obama was able to create a false sense of urgency and panic while holding America’s economy hostage to support his reckless spending priorities. This time, not only does President Obama plan to threaten default, he will use this political tactic in hopes of eliminating the debt ceiling entirely, giving him a limitless credit card to push an extreme liberal agenda and expand federal spending to catastrophic levels.

The debt problem is so severe, that if liberals and wayward Republicans do not make the hard decisions, fiscal discipline will be forced on them through the credit markets.

Credit rating agencies such as Egan-Jones and Standard & Poor’s have already downgraded the credit rating of the federal government, which directly impacts interest rates and the financial markets.

This trend of downgrades, if allowed to continue, would make it more expensive for government to borrow money. In laymen’s terms, this means that if Congressional liberals and wayward Republicans do not make the hard choices needed to reduce America’s deficit, then market forces will force their hand in the most drastic way imaginable.  Because default would lead to rapid inflation and long-term devastation to the private sector, this is a scenario that America must avoid.

America has a spending problem that must be stopped and reformed. Tax revenues are set to reach record levels this year, and there is no reason to allow the Obama Administration to avoid paying America’s pre-existing debt obligations.

Republicans must be proactive now to win the debt ceiling message debate by taking reasonable legislative steps and combating the Obama Administration’s deceptive demagoguery while maintaining the already-diminishing confidence the world has in America’s Treasury bonds.

I applaud Congressman McClintock and Senator Toomey for their leadership on this bill.  Congress should pass the Full Faith and Credit Act immediately.

R.J. Matson / Roll Call (click to view more cartoons by Matson)

Below are some excerpts of my speech:

Ronald Reagan cemented our core values with his three-legged stool analogy that conservatism stands for: free enterprise, strong national defense, and pro-family social policies.  My friends, if you take one of those legs away the stool crumbles.

If we sell out our principles then the conservative movement is simply a rudderless ship.  Those in the establishment who claim that they know how to win are simply living a lie.  Just look at the past two presidential campaigns…how did that work out for the establishment?  Only in 2010, when our conservative grassroots were fully mobilized hand and hand with the Tea Party did we prevail.

Now, last month the battle lines were drawn when Karl Rove and company announced through the New York Times of all places that they were forming the so-called Conservative Victory Project.  The “Conservative Victory Project” is nothing more than an attempt by establishment Republicans to control the conservative movement.  Calling it the Conservative Victory Project is like Mitt Romney calling himself severely conservative.  Why do Karl Rove and company think they have a monopoly on wanting to win?  We all want to win. And why does Karl Rove need to create a new organization with the name conservative in it?  Because American Crossroads failed in 2012.

Of course, there is a way to come together and unite for a common purpose.  But conservatives will not be bullied into throwing our beliefs out the window.  In 2010, President Obama and his socialist policies showed he was the unifying force for conservatives.  He must be again in 2014.

Friends, President Obama in his second inaugural address all but declared war on the conservative movement.  It took him four years, but finally the real Barack Obama…the one we all knew exposed himself as unabashedly liberal ideologue, emerged for all to see.

Obama’s campaign team knew that he could not be elected in 2008 running as a full throated liberal.  So they created the myth that Obama would reach across party lines and work to improve Washington and drain the swamp.  Over the last four years, he only thing he and Democrats have drained is the United States Treasury.

2013 must be a year where we conservatives wage a two-pronged attack against President Obama and those forces in the Republican establishment who work to marginalize the conservative movement.   We cannot rest!! We must not rest!!

As conservatives we all believe America is an exceptional nation.  We do not want our beloved nation to have the financial books of Greece nor the gun laws of China.

Watch my speech here:

Nate Beeler / Columbus Dispatch (click to view more cartoon by Beeler)

This week, House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin announced his plan to balance the federal budget in ten years, which requires the elimination of Obamacare.  Ryan has taken the important additional step of endorsing federal block grants for Medicaid users, instead of growing the program through Obamacare, which gives more flexibility in providing services to the poor while saving taxpayers an estimated $770 billion.   This budget blueprint must be put into action during this year’s appropriations process.

Obamacare has caused massive uncertainty and keeps our economy a mess by killing jobs. Mom-and-pop stores and service industry food chains have been forced to limit the number of hours employees work to avoid new regulations while dropping existing coverage entirely. After exchanges are set up, employers will be incentivized to drop coverage to make their employees eligible for new subsidies while turning over their healthcare decisions to the federal government. This can only lead to poorer service, rationing, and ultimately, socialized medicine.

This is already having an impact on hamburger chain Five Guys, where North Carolina franchise holder Mike Ruffer is facing such heavy costs from Obamacare, he is looking at just how many employees he should fire and hours to cut back at his 8 stores to minimize the new law’s overwhelming burdens.

Ruffer will not receive the same treatment as politically connected CEOs, such as Sally Jewell, Obama’s nominee to run the Interior Department. While in charge of REI, a chain of outdoor apparel products, the corporation was praised by the White House in 2009 for offering healthcare services. However, after the law was passed, REI received a waiver for the health care law. REI could not handle Obamacare, and through political favors was allowed an unfair advantage against competitors. Obamacare encourages the worst forms of cronyism and corruption.

Insurance companies, like any business, have already been forced to react to expensive regulations and an unsteady marketplace by passing along costs to consumers. According to a new study from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, the average family health insurance premium has grown by $3,000, with premiums expected to double when the law is implemented next year, on top of unsustainable federal subsidies. In addition, business owners will have to hire teams of accountants and compliance consultants in hopes of avoiding major penalties.

This year might very well be our last opportunity to get rid of Obamacare and to implement cost-cutting, free-market reforms along with consumer-focused health policies. The Republican leadership in Congress must show courage to stop this job-killing nightmare of a law before time runs out.  Conservative Americans are demanding action.

Nate Beeler / Columbus Dispatch (click to view more cartoons by Beeler)

At a press conference before the White House press corps, President Obama followed the lead of several of his cabinet members by making false claims about what the impact of the sequester is going to be.  The President claimed that starting March 2nd janitors and police officers at the Capitol building would be receiving a pay cut.

The facts tell a different story. No pay is being cut for workers at the Architect of the Capitol (the department that employs both janitors and police officers on the Capitol grounds). This misinformation from the President himself led the Washington post to give him “Four Pinnochios” because the facts just simply weren’t there.

On CBS’ Sunday morning show Face the Nation, Education Secretary Arne Duncan made a false claim that led both the Washington Post and Politifact to cry foul. Secretary Duncan claimed that as many as 40,000 teachers could lose their jobs and teachers were “literally” now getting pink slips/notices that they can’t come back in the fall.

Not only was this simply not true, but Secretary Duncan made this claim THREE separate times. As the Washington Post put it, “Next time, before going on television, check your facts.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano didn’t just make claims that weren’t true; her department released illegal immigrants being held in jail ahead of the scheduled budget cuts. After the outcry from the public about this decision, Napolitano attempted to distance herself from this decision, blaming them on employees of her department who serve in the field.

As recently as March 4th, Secretary Napolitano was blaming airport delays on the budget cuts. The airports she mentioned however – Los Angeles International Airport and Chicago’s O’Hare Airport – both routinely struggle with delays.

Last week, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said the Administration’s warnings on the sequester are not ‘scare tactics’. But the reality is the facts say otherwise. The Obama Administration is terrified that the cuts will come and the American people will be okay with them. Worse, they fear the American people will want even more government spending cut from the federal budget. More members of the President’s cabinet, both current members and outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta have routinely made claims about sequestration that just aren’t true.

If the claims are baseless enough to cause the liberal mainstream media to take notice and take them to task, it gives us an idea of how far they have gone. These cuts are not perfect; in fact they were designed by the President himself to affect the most people so that there could be public opposition to both these and future cuts.

What the President didn’t count on is this: the public is tired of the Big Government spending in Washington. Middle class Americans have been struggling for years in the Obama economy and have cut from their family budgets more than once over the course of the last four years. Americans all across this country agree: it’s time for Washington, D.C. to tighten its belt and stop spending money we can’t afford to spend. It’s time to cut. The lies from the White House can’t stop Americans and – the liberal press – from seeing the truth.

Taylor Jones / PoliticalCartoons.com (click to view more cartoons by Jones)

At issue in McCutcheon is the aggregated election cycle limits on the amounts that individuals may lawfully contribution to Federal candidates, political party committees, and other political committees.  The law currently limits not only the amounts that an individual may contribute to a single candidate or a particular political party or other political committee such as a Political Action Committee, but also the total amounts that an individual may contribute during a two-year election cycle to all candidates, political party committees, and other political committees.

For the 2013-2014 election cycle the limits are $48,600 for contributions to candidates and $74,600 for contributions to political committees.  These limits are artificially low and will force the contributor to pick and choose which candidate he or she wants to contribute to. Thus, when an individual has given $2,600 to 18 candidates, he or she is only permitted to give an additional $1800 in contributions to all other candidates for the election cycle.  These overreaching government regulations just chill free speech.

The regulations were spawned out of Buckley v. Valeo, which was decided by the Supreme Court in 1976.  The Court held that limits on contributions to candidates and political committees are subject to an intermediate level of scrutiny.  In Buckley v. Valeo the Court concluded that the limits were a constitutional means of deterring quid pro quo corruption or the appearance of corruption.

The problem with the theory of aggregate election cycle limits is those contributions are already kept in check by annual limits on candidate and political committees.  So to think quid pro quo would be tamed by aggregate election cycle limits is a misnomer.  These limits in campaign spending are just another attempt to kill free speech.

Time and again liberals have said that money needs to be taken out of the political process for the betterment of our democracy.  As with other liberal memes, this one has no place in our democracy because it actually limits it.  Money is political speech as the United States Supreme Court recognized in Citizens United.  To limit any money in the political process chills speech and the aggregate limits set forth by the Federal Election Commission are just more barriers put up by government bureaucrats.

No one can predict how the United States Supreme Court will rule in McCutcheon – look at Obamacare as an example of how unpredictable the Court can be.  But with its recent rulings like Citizens United it is becoming increasingly clear that the Court is on the side of free political speech for a change. All Americans have a right for their voices to be heard in political debate. A victory in McCutcheon will only build on that principle.

Joe Heller / Green Bay Press-Gazette (click to view more cartoons by Heller)

With our national debt rapidly approaching $17 Trillion and a President constantly seeking to spend more and raise taxes on small businesses, we need more bills like this that take a stand and prevent further outrageous government spending. Congressman DeSantis should be commended by all Americans for saving them $11 Billion over the course of the next 10 years in new spending that we simply can’t afford.

In December of 2012, President Obama issued an executive order implementing an across-the-board pay raise for government employees (including Congress and even Vice President Joe Biden), ending the two-year pay freeze on March 27th of this year.  The reality is we simply can’t afford to keep spending at its current levels and we need more Representatives to sponsor and pass legislation making necessary cuts so that government stops over-charging hardworking taxpayers.

One of Congressman DeSantis’ constituents said of the pay freeze, “We have to start somewhere, and we might as well start with the federal government. If you’re going to talk the talk, you should walk the walk.”  Americans get it.  If President Obama and Congress cannot make simple cost cutting measures like a temporary pay freeze than we will never get out of our crushing debt.  That is why Congress needs more legislators like Congressman Ron DeSantis.  He was just sworn in as a freshman Congressman and he understands that action needs to take place now.  Citizens United Political Victory Fund, an affiliate of Citizens United, backed Congressman Ron DeSantis first in his primary and then in November because we saw that he would lead and not be a back bencher.

It’s time for the United States Senate to pass DeSantis’ important bill and start to follow the House of Representatives’ lead when it comes to reducing government spending.  Unfortunately, all good government pieces of legislation seem to die in the Democrat controlled Senate.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would rather watch America descend into a fiscal abyss rather than fix the situation.  Reid and President Obama are beholden to Left wing special interests who do not want to compromise their Big Government ways while our national debt keeps climbing.

Enough is enough. When you look at the math you come to a simple conclusion: we cannot afford the path we are currently on. And with 7.9% unemployment and skyrocketing debt, government can’t keep passing the buck onto the American people.  Future generations of Americans will look back at this time period in American history with disgust.  It’s time for action. It’s time for real solutions. It’s time for more to follow Congressman Ron DeSantis’ lead and help put America back on the right track.

Nate Beeler / Columbus Dispatch (click to view more cartoons by Beeler)

You just have to look at President Obama’s callous rhetoric over the last five years to see how he has become the Divider in Chief not the Commander in Chief.  From playing class warfare with the wealthy and poor, to pushing the idea that Republicans are engaged in some kind of war on women, President Obama likes driving a wedge between the American people.  Now he will be using the upcoming sequester to divide Americans even further for his own political gain.

The White House went back to their old bag of tricks last week and released a memo stating how the $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts would hurt the American people.   Read below and see their laundry list of fear mongering:

• Cuts to education: Our ability to teach our kids the skills they’ll need for the jobs of the future would be put at risk. 70,000 young children would be kicked off Head Start, 10,000 teacher jobs would be put at risk, and funding for up to 7,200 special education teachers, aides, and staff could be cut.

• Cuts to small business: Small businesses create two-thirds of all new jobs in America and instead of helping small businesses expand and hire, the automatic cuts triggered by a sequester would reduce loan guarantees to small businesses by up to $540 million.

• Cuts to food safety: Outbreaks of foodborne illness are a serious threat to families and public health.  If a sequester takes effect, up to 2,100 fewer food inspections could occur, putting families at risk and costing billions in lost food production.

• Cuts to research and innovation: In order to compete for the jobs of the future and to ensure that the next breakthroughs to find cures for critical diseases are developed right here in America, we need to continue to lead the world in research and innovation.  Most Americans with chronic diseases don’t have a day to lose, but under a sequester progress towards cures would be delayed and several thousand researchers could lose their jobs. Up to 12,000 scientists and students would also be impacted.

• Cuts to mental health: If a sequester takes effect, up to 373,000 seriously mentally ill adults and seriously emotionally disturbed children could go untreated. This would likely lead to increased hospitalizations, involvement in the criminal justice system, and homelessness for these individuals.

As you can see the White House wants you to believe that the sky will fall if sequestration goes into effect on March 1st.  They continually blame the Republican-led House of Representatives for these cuts. One problem, during the budget battles of 2011 then-White House Office of Management and Budget Director and now wannabe Treasury Secretary Jack Lew came up with the idea of sequestration. Lew who did a stint as White House Chief of Staff during the intervening years along with White House Legislative Director Rob Nabors introduced the plan to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.  The Obama White House wants to ignore these facts but you just have to read Bob Woodward’s book The Price of Politics to get the play by play of how sequestration was conceived in the backrooms of power.

President Obama does not want to take any blame for his actions. What you will see tonight is more of the same tired rhetoric that is to blame everybody else for America’s ills. We are a nation with $16.5 trillion in national debt and a stagnant unemployment rate at 7.9 percent.  It’s time to look into the mirror Mr. President, and take the blame for your own failed actions.

Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to view more cartoons by McKee)

It is a sad state of affairs when those in the mainstream media try to compare President Reagan to President Barack Obama.  They are polar opposites both philosophical and how they interact with the American people.  Ronald Reagan was the peoples President and Barack Obama is the divider in chief.  Ronald Reagan scorned Big Government and Barack Obama embraces it.  Ronald Reagan believed that America is an exceptional nation and Barack Obama believes America is just one of many exceptional nations.  I could go on and on highlighting the differences but you can see where I am going with this.  The greatness of Ronald Reagan just does not come close to the folly of Barack Obama.

A few years ago, Citizens United Productions teamed up with Newt and Callista Gingrich to produce “Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous With Destiny”.  This feature length documentary focuses on the three pillars of the Reagan presidency: reviving the American economy, restoring America’s spirit, and challenging the oppression of the Soviet Union. Through interviews with historians, cabinet members, and world leaders, the film examines and celebrates the Great Communicator and his legacy.

We traveled across the United States and to historic locations in Europe to capture the sights and sounds that defined Ronald Reagan’s presidency. You’ll see exclusive interviews and footage of President Reagan’s greatest speeches, from his unforgettable “Tear Down This Wall” in Berlin, to the moving “Boys of Pointe Du Hoc” in France, to his stirring farewell address from the Oval Office. Shooting on location in four countries, “Rendezvous With Destiny” goes to unprecedented lengths to tell the remarkable tale of Ronald Reagan’s life.

The film features exclusive interviews with late President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic, President Lech Walesa of Poland, along with Reagan Cabinet and staff members including James Baker, Edwin Meese, Marlin Fitzwater, Richard Perle, William Bennett, and the late Jack Kemp, “Rendezvous With Destiny” is President Reagan’s story as told by the people who were with him on the front lines of the Reagan Revolution.

President Reagan was a true statesman who loved the American spirit.  He never wavered on his core conservative principles and saw America for what it is – a shining city on a hill.  Americans must never forget what he stood for.  Ronald Reagan was and still is an American patriot who will go down in history as one of the greats.  Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

Michael McParlane / Politicalcartoons.com

A week after Citizens United’s victory, President Obama unprecedentedly went after the Justices during his State of the Union saying, “…The Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign companies — to spend without limit in our elections.  Well, I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, and worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong.”

First, President Obama was completely wrong when he said that “foreign companies” would have a greater influence on our elections. Foreign companies could not contribute to campaigns before the Citizens United decision and after the Citizens United decision.  Second, liberals in Congress, with President Obama’s backing, repeatedly tried to pass the DISCLOSE Act and failed.  The DISCLOSE Act was in essence an incumbent protection bill that went nowhere but was used by the Left to rally their base on campaign finance reform.

From the very beginning, President Obama has been a hypocrite when it comes to campaign finance.  Back in the 2008 campaign, then-candidate Obama broke a promise that he would accept public financing in the General Election.  Fast forward to 2012, President Obama and his campaign team openly backed the super PAC Priorities USA Action.   Priorities USA Action was set up by former Obama White House Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton, and spent nearly $21 million in the final weeks of the 2012 presidential campaign bashing Mitt Romney.  Now President Obama’s re-election campaign – Organizing for America – is getting a name change to Organizing for Action.

Organizing for Action is a non-profit 501 (c)(4) organization under the tax code and will be able to take unlimited donations from….wait for it….corporations.  As President of Citizens United I revel in the fact that President Obama has come full circle and embraced the power of political speech.  Now, they claim that Organizing for Action will not be overtly political, but as we have seen in the past, these promises will ring hollow.

You just have to look at the reaction by Fred Wertheimer, who heads the campaign finance watchdog group Democracy 21, and told POLITICO that President Obama should “immediately” shut down Organizing for Action.  Mr. Wertheimer went on to say Organizing for Action is “an inexplicable action by the president that directly contradicts the message President Obama has been taking to the country for years about the dangerous role played by corporate and special interest money in influencing the way business is done in Washington.”

As we have seen throughout Barack Obama’s political life it is one that is mired in hypocrisy.  Organizing for Action is just an exclamation point of that hypocrisy.  For his entire first term President Obama railed against the Citizens United decision.  Now as he enters his second term, his political organization is embracing it.  Welcome to the age of greater political speech, Mr. President.

Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to view more cartoons by McKee)

President Obama’s true liberal colors were out in full bloom during his speech and I have a hunch that those colors will not soften over the next four years.  One just has to take a look at when Obama said, “Preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.”  When President Obama says “collective action” what he really means is Big Government.

President Obama’s views since he was a community organizer on the south side of Chicago have always been liberal and in the context of how government should be the central authority in our lives. President Obama and his campaign team knew that he could not be elected in 2008 running on a full throated liberal platform.  So they created the myth that President Obama would reach across party lines and work to improve Washington.

What America saw during President Obama’s second inaugural address was him completely unvarnished and taking petty partisan swipes at those who disagree with him.  When President Obama said, “The commitments we make to each other – through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security – these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.”  He is trying to demonize those who believe in the reality that entitlement reform must take place.  The problem is President Obama’s head is in the sand, but as a liberal ideologue he refuses to reform New Deal and Great Society programs no matter what.

The Congressional Budget Office said last fall that Social Security will become insolvent by 2033.  Social Security is clearly not on solid ground, that is why entitlement reform must take place now or the fixes will only be tough for those American people who depend on these programs.  To demonize those who want to reform the entitlement system does not serve the American people well.  It is evident that President Obama does not want a reasonable discussion and will play towards people’s fears rather than solving problems in the next four years.

The Republican led House of Representatives must stand firm against the upcoming onslaught of liberalism that the Obama Administration will espouse over the next four years.  President Obama will continue to push his ideology on a grander scale since he never has to face voters again.  It is incumbent among Republicans to hold those Democrats accountable for declining to address entitlement reform before it is too late.  The battle lines are clearly drawn now, and Republicans must band together to fight for a smaller more efficient government.  If we do not hold firm the age of Big Government might go on for perpetuity.

Nate Beeler / Columbus Dispatch (click to view more cartoons by Beeler)

In the first two years of Obama’s presidency the Democrat Congress was a rubber stamp for his Big Government policies.  A bulk of our staggering debt acquired under President Obama can be traced to those two years where the liberals in control of Washington spent taxpayers’ money like a bunch of drunken sailors.    However, since the 2010 elections, the Republican majority in the House of Representatives has tried to help tame the open faucet of government spending.

It is imperative that Speaker of the House John Boehner holds the line on even more government spending in the coming months.  It is why the debt ceiling debate is so important.  The purpose of the debt ceiling is to act as a backstop to keep the Treasury Department in check.  But Congress has raised the debt ceiling 94 times since 1940, rendering the idea of such a limit utterly meaningless.  The debt ceiling has turned into a complete farce under both Republican and Democrat administrations.

With the debt limit about to be breached for the seventh time under Obama’s presidency, Speaker Boehner and Republicans in Congress need to use President Obama’s own words against him. In 2006, then-Senator Barack Obama railed against President Bush for raising the debt ceiling by saying:

“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.  I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.”

President Obama needs to heed his own words from 2006 and recognize that raising the debt ceiling for the seventh time during his tenure in office is a leadership failure.  Unfortunately, Obama used scare tactics in his press conference on Monday by saying Republicans would be blamed for economic Armageddon if they did not pass a debt ceiling increase. He also used the old liberal playbook by scaring seniors on Social Security and saying the members of the military and veterans would not be paid if Congress failed to increase the debt ceiling.

Republicans in the House of Representatives should right now pass legislation that would protect seniors and those in the military and veterans from the affects of defaulting on our debt.  Republicans need to be on offense, and by passing this commonsense piece of legislation seniors and our military would not be used as pawns by President Obama and Democrats in Congress.  The American people are tired of being held hostage by an administration that does not want to solve the issue of our national debt and entitlement reform.

Then-Senator Obama was right in 2006 when he said that future generations are suffering from the “bad choices” we are making today.  The national debt stood at $8.2 trillion when Obama uttered those words on the Senate floor.  We are nearly at $16.5 trillion now and could get over $20 trillion by 2016.  What has changed Mr. President?

Taylor Jones / PoliticalCartoons.com (click to view more cartoons by Jones)

In 2009, Senator Hagel said this about the current regime in Syria, “I believe there is a real possibility of a shift in Syria’s strategic thinking and policies…Syria wants to talk — at the highest levels — and everything is on the table.”  The United Nations has said that 60,000 plus Syrians have been killed since violence broke out nearly two years ago.  The Assad regime has been brutal towards its own people and looks like they will fight till the last murderer is standing.  Senator Hagel was dead wrong about Assad and Syria.

In January of 2007, as the Iraqi surge was being debated in Washington, Senator Hagel said it would be “…the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it’s carried out.”  The surge was a resounding success that finally brought stability to Iraq.  What would have been the alternative, pull out our forces and let Iraq go down a path of complete anarchy where Islamic extremists would rule? Senator Hagel was simply wrong when it came to the Iraqi surge as was then-Senator Barack Obama who was against it as well.  Without the surge, God only knows what the state of this troubled region would be.
In September of 2007, Senator Hagel voted against designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization.  The Revolutionary Guard comprises of 125,000 elite troops that are separate from the Iranian regular armed forces.  Although the main purpose is to protect the Iranian regime through their multilayered forces, the Revolutionary Guard has also become a very powerful political and economic force within Iran.  In Iraq and Afghanistan the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force has been linked to providing arms and explosives to Shiite militias and the Taliban in both countries.  That is why it is so perplexing that as a United States Senator armed with classified information Chuck Hagel voted against the designation.

In 2001, Senator Hagel was one of only two Senators who voted against the renewal of the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act.  The legislation required the U.S. government to impose tough sanctions on foreign companies that invest $20 million a year on Iranian oil or gas development and $40 million on Libyan oil or gas development.  The reason for the sanctions was to punish both the regimes in Iran and Libya from reaping large profits so they could fund weapons of mass destruction programs.  Senator Hagel voted against these sanctions that were nearly unanimously passed in the United States Senate. Why?

In 1999, Senator Hagel was the only Senator not to sign a letter to then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin on the “rise of anti-Semitism” in Russia.  The letter appeared in the New York Times in conjunction with a Yeltsin visit to the United States.  One would think it would be a no-brainer for a Senator to sign the letter but Senator Hagel did not. Again, why?

By nominating Senator Chuck Hagel to be the next Secretary of Defense, President Obama clearly wants a nomination fight.  What I touched on in this column is just the tip of the iceberg.  Senator Hagel will have to answer for the many misstatements he has made over the years in regard to our national defense. He has a long record and I am sure that both Republicans and Democrats will hold him accountable during his nomination hearing.  From what I see, President Obama should have not nominated Senator Hagel in the first place.  He is simply the wrong man for the job.

As Kentucky Senator Rand Paul said on New Year’s Eve, and who ultimately voted against this flawed piece of legislation, “Not only are they raising taxes — maybe on a smaller percentage of people but a large amount of money — they’re also going to spend more money…So it’s a spending bill.”

America has a spending problem not a revenue problem.  With the passage of this “compromise” the Congressional Budget Office projects that the federal government’s spending will actually increase by $330 billion over ten years.  To put it in even starker terms, for every $1 in spending cuts $41 is generated in tax increases.  A real compromise would have included entitlement reform and meaningful cuts in all federal spending programs across the board.

So how did we get here?  Since the failure of the “Super Committee” in the fall of 2011, thanks to President Obama’s jihad against successful people, a ticking time bomb was set in motion where a number of tax increases and unsavory defense cuts would go into effect on January 1, 2013.  Congress waited to the last possible second to come to a resolution.  The House of Representatives did pass a number of bills that alleviated pressure from the “Fiscal Cliff” but those pieces of legislation died in the Democrat controlled Senate.  Harry Reid and President Obama skillfully played Republicans by using the hourglass to their advantage and forcing this bad piece of legislation through Congress in the dead of the night.

To be an honest broker, one also has to fault the failed presidential campaign of Mitt Romney.  The Romney Campaign chose not to make the “Fiscal Cliff” a central theme of the campaign.  If they had a detailed plan, they did not make it public and by doing so the campaign and the Republican Party lost the message war to the Obama campaign in the fall.

So where do we go from here?  Thankfully Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell did not give the whole store away and cede control of the debt ceiling to President Obama.    In two months Republicans in Congress will have a chance to redeem themselves in holding the line on spending when it comes to our $16 trillion plus national debt.

Republicans in both the Senate and the House must aggressively cut government spending.  Punting yet again is not an option after the fiasco of the “compromise” that passed last night. Our debt is out-of-control and future generations of Americans depend on what will happen in Washington in the near future.  When will America’s leaders show courage to tackle entitlement reform?

Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to view more cartoons by McKee)

His obsession is to levy higher taxes on Americans who have worked hard and have become successful.  Citizens United has launched the “Say No To Obama Tax Hikes” petition drive so Americans can let their collective voices be heard in stopping these arrogant tax hikes.  President Obama’s fascination with tax hikes is peculiar given that even he (along with most experts in the Western Hemisphere) has said that tax increases will further damage our economy.   If he thought that was true in the past, why is he now pushing for them with every ounce of his being?  President Obama plays, like so many Chicago politicians before him, the politics of division and class warfare.  That’s his cynical and arrogant game.  Luckily, he’s about to outsmart himself.

The President thinks he wins either way.  If we go off the cliff, Republicans get blamed.  And if Republicans go along with his tax increase, we will lose the issue and have a civil war within the GOP.  Unfortunately for the President there is a third option.  Speaker John Boehner and the Republican majority in the U.S. House should pass their own economic plan before the end of the year that does not raise any taxes.

The package should include the following: across-the-board tax rate cuts for all Americans, designed to grow the pie and increase revenue; reasonable, structural entitlement reforms that will further increase savings; tax code simplification; and across-the-board cuts to discretionary spending in the federal budget (including Defense).  This commonsense plan will pass the House with all Republicans voting yes and will also bring a few Democrats along for the ride.

President Obama will, of course, come out against this optimistic pro-growth plan because it doesn’t include his meaningless and economically dangerous tax hikes.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will then say something hate-filled about Speaker Boehner and all Republicans who would vote for something so hopeful.  Reid, an embarrassment to the world’s greatest deliberative body, will bring no counter plan to the Senate floor.  Christmas will then arrive and all the House Republicans will go home to their districts and compare their comprehensive plan to President Obama’s meaningless tax hike.  Then we’d go off the fiscal cliff.

In January, taxes will go up for all Americans, millions of whom are President Obama’s supporters in the lower and middle income tax brackets.  Serious spending cuts would also kick in that would make the President’s liberal allies on Capitol Hill angry because, lest we forget, Democrats do not like responsible spending cuts.   And all because Mr. Obama is hell bent on raising taxes.

President Obama will then go on to play more class warfare at his inauguration and then at the State of the Union address and the liberal media will say President Obama won the political fight.  Then weeks and months will pass and reality will set in.   That reality is the Obama economy.  Who gets blamed for failures of leadership and failed economics?  Presidents do – especially in their second terms when people start to get antsy for new leadership.  House Republicans must use their majority to drive an agenda and campaign on American hope, growth, and opportunity.

That’s my conservative Christmas wish.

Eric Allie / PoliticalCartoons.com (click to view more cartoons by Allie)

Protected by his friends in the liberal mainstream media, President Obama has not been held accountable for this lack of leadership.  There have been no 60 Minutes special investigations into how and why America’s fiscal footing is crumbling right before our very eyes.  Americans do not understand that by going over the fiscal cliff, taxes will go up on everybody, which will hurt an already sputtering economy.  Perhaps teaching that lesson would be the best of a bad reality.

President Obama, buoyed by the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, believes in Big Government liberal policies.  So it should not be a shock that the federal workforce has ballooned to 2.2 million workers – reaching levels not seen since the Clinton Administration.  The federal government has become a bloated mess that only consumes taxpayer money.

If we do go over the fiscal cliff, the payroll tax cut expires, the Bush tax cuts expire, and estate taxes will revert back to pre-Bush tax cut levels.  Obviously, all of these tax hikes will devastate an already fragile economy.  However, all President Obama and Democrats in Congress see is the opportunity for more tax revenue for their ever-expanding federal government, not real cuts or reforms of entitlement programs.

One of the founding principles of America is limited government; it is what makes America a unique and exceptional nation.  These principles are also the bedrock of modern-day conservatism.  It is imperative that Republicans in Congress – led by Speaker John Boehner – stand firm for these beliefs and do not raise taxes on their fellow Americans.  America has a spending problem, NOT a revenue problem.  Any solutions that will actually work in tamping down our debt must involve comprehensive entitlement reform.

Citizens United has launched a “Say No To Obama Tax Hikes” petition drive that affirms the five principles below for lower taxes and limited government:

1.      The federal government taxes too much and spends too much.
2.      Tax increases harm economic growth and job creation.
3.      Reform entitlement programs.
4.      Reform and simplify our tax code.
5.      Cut all federal spending to balance the budget and reduce the debt.

America is worth fighting for and the decisions that will be made in the next three weeks will have far reaching consequences on future generations.  Sign the petition and let your voice be heard in Washington.  We know how the Democrats will vote, that is why it is so important for Congressional Republicans to stand firm on their core principles and not capitulate to President Obama.

Gary McCoy / PoliticalCartoons.com (click to view more cartoons by McCoy)

It is Bob Costas’ First Amendment right to say whatever he wants to but using the Sunday Night Football halftime show to preach that guns are evil crossed a line. Costas inserted his personal liberal political views into a sports broadcast where they do not belong. Even worse, instead of pointing the finger at the murderer, Costas blamed the gun.

“If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today,” Costas unequivocally declared. The old axiom that people kill people, guns do not kill people is true. It would have been just as easy for Belcher to have committed this murder-suicide another way.  In fact, last week in Wyoming, a man stabbed his father’s live-in girlfriend to death, then killed his father with a bow and arrow, before finally killing himself with a knife.  In Bob Costas’ world, if that man did not possess a knife or bow and arrow, they all would still be alive today.

Would Costas have us ban all knives and bow and arrows – or any other item that could be used as a lethal weapon?  Cars kill more people every year than guns do, should we ban those, too? Where does it end? It is just silly and banning guns will only leave innocent people without a proper defense.

According to a 1995 Northwestern University study, 2.5 million Americans use guns in self defense every year. There are countless stories out there of how guns have saved lives and have provided a last line of defense.  Just last week, a teenager saved his mother’s life with a gun during a domestic violence incident in which his abusive father was beating and choking her.

It’s been reported that Belcher and Perkins were having domestic issues. The truth is, guns are the great equalizer between abusers and their targeted victims. A woman is no match for a 6’ 2”, 228 lb linebacker. In light of this, to use Bob Costas’ logic, if Kasandra Perkins DID possess a gun, it is possible that she and Jovan Belcher would both be alive today.

There are so many other elements to this crime, many still unknown. It was irresponsible and inappropriate for Bob Costas to jump the gun, so to speak, on assigning judgment and blame. He should just stick to what he knows…reading sports off of a teleprompter.  He should not preach about gun control on Sunday Night Football and turn this very real tragedy into a political football.

Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to view more cartoons by McKee)

Any deal that leaves entitlement programs untouched is a failure and a dereliction of duty by both the executive and legislative branches.  President Obama of course knows that entitlement programs drive our out-of-control national debt but he has yet to offer a serious proposal that includes any entitlement reform or long-term debt reduction.  Does he really want a Greece-type meltdown to happen on his watch because of partisanship or is this newly minted second-termer ready to become an elder statesman who is capable of real leadership?

If past is prologue, Obama will continue his divide and conquer campaign. The Obama Administration has basically admitted that it doesn’t care to feign a realistic attempt at crafting a long term budget, all it cares about is tearing down its opponents.  Earlier this year, when House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan hammered the Administration for not having a plan to get the debt under control, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner admitted, “You are right to say we’re not coming before you today to say we have a definitive solution to that long term problem.  What we do know is we don’t like yours.”

This rare moment of honesty was surprising, but Geithner was simply following President Obama’s lead. President Obama has shirked any leadership responsibilities, saying that it was not his place to offer a plan to bring down America’s debt and deficit:  “If you look at the history of how these deals get done, typically it’s not because there’s an Obama plan out there.”  His lack of seriousness led to his most recent budget being unanimously rejected in the Senate 99-0 and the House 414-0.

Sequestration is set to take effect on January 2, 2013, cutting a total of $109 billion from both domestic and defense spending in the first year.  If the defense cuts are fully realized, then $500 billion would be cut over the next decade – and that is on top of the $487 billion in cuts already planned.  These massive cuts send the wrong signals to our adversaries.

A better target for cutting is Obamacare. This unpopular piece of legislation forced upon the American people against their wishes is turning out to be a crushing behemoth. Surprise, surprise, the savings President Obama promised are not materializing. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has said that it will add $109 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years, instead of saving $143 billion as the President said it would. The CBO has also said it will cost $1.93 trillion over the 10 years after it is implemented in 2014, instead of the $940 billion President Obama said it would.

All President Obama has offered is tax increases on Americans making $250,000 and up, which will do very little to get us out of this fiscal hole we are in.  The tax revenue realized by that increase would only generate $850 billion over ten years. That comes to $85 billion a year which would only run the government for eight and a half days.

Americans are still struggling and one of the ways to help our economy is to guarantee our citizens and businesses that their taxes aren’t going up.  It’s common sense that economic uncertainty discourages investment and growth and a strong economy will go a long way towards slowing the growth of the deficit.  However, real entitlement reform also must be on the table or our unsustainable debt will only get worse.

Jeff Landry

Rep. Landry was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from the 3rd District of Louisiana in 2010.  The redistricting process has forced an incumbent-on-incumbent match-up in the newly formed 3rd district.  Congressman Charles Boustany, formerly of Louisiana’s 7th district, will square off against Landry in the Pelican State’s unique December 8th run-off election.

Rep. Boustany, since being elected in 2004, has become a Washington insider who runs in the same circles as career politicians in party leadership.  The highly respected Almanac of American Politics 2012 edition has described Boustany’s voting record as “relatively moderate for a Southern Republican…”

By contrast, Landry is a noted constitutional conservative who came to Washington two years ago to reform it, not to become part of an establishment that has excelled at nothing but kicking the can down the road on the difficult issues that need to be resolved for our children and grandchildren.  During Landry’s first term, he has become a well respected author of innovative legislative proposals that focus on reforming and streamlining the size and scope of government.

For instance, in 2008, Mr. Boustany voted in favor of the infamous $700 billion TARP bailout and said at the time that “this was a bill that had to pass.”  Statements like this one are made by politicians who won’t stand up against the prevailing winds in Washington.  Congressman Landry is the opposite.  He opposes bailouts on principle – he believes that irresponsible banks on Wall Street had no business being propped up by hard-working American taxpayers.

Make no mistake about it – this is a very important race.  The results will indicate whether or not Americans still yearn for reform or if the status quo has seeped back to prominence.  If you are a voter in Louisiana’s new 3rd congressional district, here’s what you need to know:  If you consider yourself a conservative American, Jeff Landry is your candidate.  If you support tea party principles, Jeff Landry is your candidate.  And if you want a Washington outsider whose priority is his constituents – not his party’s leadership – please pull the lever for Jeff Landry when you go to vote.

Taylor Jones / PoliticalCartoons.com (click to view more cartoons by Jones)

In 2008, Senator McCain got heavily out-spent and lost big. In that election cycle, President Obama raised $730 million to John McCain’s $383 million. The Obama campaign buried John McCain with television ads.  John McCain took in $84 million in public financing, while President Obama went back on his word and did not take any public financing, which severely hampered McCain.

In 2012, thanks to Citizens United, the race was waged on a more level playing field.  According to preliminary reports, President Obama and Governor Romney, combined with their affiliated outside groups, each spent roughly $1 billion on the race.  Of the $1 billion spent by the Romney campaign or its affiliates nearly $410 million was from outside groups.

On Tuesday night, Governor Romney lost the raw popular vote by 3 million out of 121 million total votes cast.  If groups like Karl Rove’s American Crossroads and Americans for Prosperity were not around this cycle, I believe Mitt Romney would have lost the popular vote by a massive amount and our hold on the House of Representatives would have slipped away.  Governor Romney and his affiliated groups were able to go toe to toe with President Obama.

The Washington Post said in its after action report:

“If either Romney or Obama had held a substantial cash advantage, it is possible that one candidate could have dominated in the final weeks of the campaign. But the two camps were roughly evenly matched by the end.”

People bemoan money in politics, but political speech flourished in 2012 and there is nothing wrong with that.  To put things into perspective, in 2010 Coca-Cola’s advertising budget was $2.9 billion and McDonalds’ was $2.3 billion.  If Coca-Cola and McDonalds can spend a combined $5.2 billion in one year on promoting hamburgers and soft drinks, there is no reason for us to complain about $2 billion being spent to help us decide on the leader of the free world.  Choosing a President is a high stakes affair and it is actually disturbing that more money is spent promoting Big Macs and Coke than on the presidential candidates.

Americans make a choice about which way they want their country to go in each election.  There should not be any limits on campaign spending because that money goes towards helping get ideas out there for the people to make their decision.  What makes America great is that both sides of the argument can be heard and the government cannot censor it.  The answer to speech you don’t agree with is more speech, not censoring the speech you disagree with.  More political speech and information is good for our nation — not less.

Americans cherish their right to free speech and Citizens United ensured that the government cannot take that fundamental right away.  Our case allowed more voices to break through the media cacophony and the big spending Obama campaign to be heard. This benefitted all Americans and gave Obama a run for his money.

In trying to stimulate our economy, he’s destroying it. In attempting to improve health care, he’s ruining it. In seeking to restore our credibility across the world, he’s decimating it.

Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to view more cartoons by McKee)

That is why Citizens United is dedicated to hitting that critical mass of people who supported Obama in 2008 but, after viewing “The Hope and The Change,” will never make the same mistake again. You must make sure that the people in your life who are still undecided know about the film that Sean Hannity called “the most powerful documentary I’ve ever seen!”

“The Hope and The Change” weaves the journeys of 40 Americans from their euphoria at the election of President Obama, to their initial disappointment, through their dismay at his administration’s failures.

The diverse cast encompasses a broad cross-section of America’s racial and socio-economic spectrum. They are registered independents and Democrats, some of whom who have voted with the party their entire lives.

These are the people who will determine the election. They are from the swing states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, each of which remain in a dead heat with only five days left until Election Day. Their powerful stories really drive home the message of President Obama’s disappointments and failures in a way that will reach those who may still be on the fence about him.

These are people who are concerned about their children’s future, home foreclosures, and how to pay their bills. Meanwhile, they see President Obama going on vacation after vacation, golfing every chance he gets, and yukking it up with the likes of David Letterman, the ladies of The View, and Jon Stewart.

As one woman says in “The Hope and The Change,” “I think the legacy of Barack Obama is going to be that he made a lot of promises, got into office and couldn’t fulfill them.”

Think of the Stimulus Bill the president signed into law. He promised that at this time unemployment would be down to 5.5 percent if Congress passed it. We are at 7.8 percent, and are $800 billion in the hole. So much for “shovel-ready” jobs.

Remember how President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize? He hadn’t even finished his first year in office. Looking back, in the wake of the Benghazi disaster and with our Middle East policy up in flames, the award looks even more like a sick joke.

As a candidate, President Obama promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term. Instead, each year has brought over $1 trillion in new deficit spending. He called President Bush unpatriotic for increasing the debt by $4 trillion over 8 years, but Obama’s increased it $5 trillion in less than 4.

President Obama was supposed to unite the country and heal our divisions. Instead, we are more gridlocked and divided than ever before with Obama pitting classes, genders, and races against each other.

“When I hear the phrase ‘hope and change,’ I definitely think of bait and switch,” says another American featured in “The Hope and The Change.”

Ask yourself, can we go through another four years of this? If you answer is “no,” please share “The Hope and The Change” with everyone you know.

Eric Allie / PoliticalCartoons.com (click to view more cartoons by Allie)

The arrogance was seen by all when President Obama said the following during this week’s debate, “You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.” Those on the Left and his friends in the media saw the comments as a plus for President Obama, but I strongly disagree. What America saw in their President was a childish response to a very strategically important question about the U.S. Navy.

America relies on free and open shipping lanes to move our commerce. If those lanes are closed or threatened, then our economy is threatened. Part of what has made America into a global superpower is the fact that we have a blue-water navy, meaning that a United States naval ship can go anywhere in the world to protect our interests. It takes many ships to accomplish that goal and what President Obama said this week no doubt prompted a celebratory cheer in Beijing.

The arrogance continued during this last debate when Governor Romney highlighted what former Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen said recently about our national debt, “A nation with our current levels of unsustainable debt … cannot hope to sustain for very long its superiority from a military perspective, or its influence in world affairs.” America’s debt is spiraling out of control with the number north of $16 trillion and President Obama does not have a plan to get us out of this mountain of debt. President Obama did not respond to this point made by Mitt Romney because he has no answers.

Mitt Romney was very smart with how he steered the debate again and again back towards the economy. It goes without saying that the economy is what this election will be decided on and President Obama’s record is abysmal at best. Romney continued the line of attack that President Obama promised that the unemployment rate would be at 5.4 percent by 2012 with the stimulus. President Obama again had no answers.

President Obama’s multiple personalities were on full display throughout this debate season. With Americans heading to the polls in less than two weeks, they are seeking a President with an agenda that will work for them — not one that has failed over the last four years. Mitt Romney changed the narrative of the entire campaign after the first debate and his campaign has been surging ever since because he has had the facts on his side while President Obama had empty promises.

Barack Obama may have many faces, but his presidency has only one: failure.

Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to view more cartoons by McKee)

Bad policies are bad policies. Working on his delivery and style won’t change the fact that Obama is attempting to sell the same old backward policies that has America going in the wrong direction.  We are on the precipice of the proverbial “fiscal cliff” with over $16 trillion in debt and President Obama is worried about the celebrity feud between Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey.  Seriously, is this what the President of the United States should be worried about during this time of fiscal crisis?

President Obama and his national security team should also be focusing on why and how Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other brave Americans were assassinated by Al Qaeda operatives at the American consulate in Benghazi. As was shown in a Congressional hearing last week, serious questions still remain as to why this tragedy happened and if it could have been prevented.

What is also galling is the constantly changing story by the White House and Administration in blaming this tragedy on a misguided video in the weeks after the attack.  Time will tell what the White House knew and when it knew it, but this scandal has legs and will no doubt be at the center of the foreign policy debate slated for next week.  It is pathetic to see President Obama’s chief political strategist David Axelrod blaming the Romney campaign for bringing up the issue.  A United States Ambassador was assassinated for the first time in over thirty years. It should be and will be an issue in the closing weeks of the campaign.

With Governor Mitt Romney holding a slight edge nationally over President Obama with three weeks to go, it is fair to assume that we will see a different President Obama tonight.  The problem is that after four years, the American people know their president and they do not like what they see.  As Joe Biden showed last week, President Obama will concentrate on rallying his base.  This will no doubt backfire because when you are playing to your base at this late stage of the campaign you risk turning off independent and other undecided voters who will decide the election.  The Obama campaign is flailing around at a time when four years ago they were on the verge of victory.

Why? Because the proof is in the pudding and the facts do not line up with the narrative Barack Obama is trying to sell.  With twenty-one days left in an election that will have implications for generations to come, President Obama is still in his White House bunker commenting on celebrity feuds.  He needs to be concentrating on the American people.

Nate Beeler / Columbus Dispatch (click to view more cartoons by Beeler)

President Obama is so out of touch that aides say he walked out of the debate thinking he had won. In fact, it was the biggest shellacking Gallup has ever seen – their polling showed people watching the debate thought Mitt Romney won 72-20 percent. Other than Obama, I’m not sure who else makes up that 20 percent – even his campaign staff knew he lost and they’re still panicking.

After Romney’s resounding victory at the debate, the Obama campaign unveiled a brand new message: Save Big Bird! It doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as “hope” and “change,” but it’s just as hollow. When your main line of attack as a sitting president is based on a children’s character, you know you are losing.

As Obama himself said at the Democrat National Convention in 2008:

“If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things.”

Can you get any smaller (figuratively) than Big Bird as a campaign issue? As bad as the War on Women, the cancer smear, and Seamus the dog were as pathetic, small-minded attacks, this one takes the cake. It is particularly galling when real life or death issues are at play, like the September 11, 2012 terrorist attacks, “Fast and Furious,” and the millions struggling to survive under the Obama Economy. President Obama is shirking these big issues because he and his administration caused or at least failed to prevent them.

Another point that is missed about the Big Bird controversy is that Romney spoke about defunding PBS as a lighthearted example of how he would cut programs to reduce the debt. He said he would ask, “Is the program so critical it’s worth borrowing money from China to pay for it?” Sorry, Big Bird, but PBS’s Sesame Street does not pass that test.

Our crushing $16 trillion national debt is an economic disaster. Countries like China own enormous amounts of our debt and if they sell it off they can wield great power over America. Now more than ever, America needs a Commander-in-Chief who will act boldly to solve our financial crisis, but President Obama instead weakly hides behind Big Bird.

No doubt after President Obama’s horrendous debate performance, many people inclined to support him are now questioning their choice. These are the very people that ‘The Hope and The Change’ seeks to reach. Seeing other former Obama supporters just like them express their doubt and disappointment will resonate.

Now anyone with an internet connection can watch ‘The Hope and The Change’ on Hulu.com. Having ‘The Hope and The Change’ available online will only bring more people into the conversation and allow a younger demographic to view this very important film as we enter the final stretch of the presidential campaign. Hopefully we can get people talking about big ideas again, instead of Big Bird.

Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to view more cartoons by McKee)

Another bad jobs report will come out on Friday.  What is Obama’s answer?  He doesn’t have one.  Obama put his program in place and it didn’t work.  Even Vice President Biden admits the middle class has been buried for the last four years.

People are worse off economically more than ever before, unless you lived through the Great Depression.  And even then, the Associated Press has called this “the feeblest economic recovery since the Great Depression.”

Times are really tough in America.  The hard realities are really driven home by the many hard-working Americans we spoke to in the making of the film “The Hope and The Change.”  We interviewed 40 Democrats and independents in seven swing states who had voted for Obama in 2008, but have lost their faith.

Their powerful stories of struggling to make ends meet will break your heart.  One woman tells of the pressures of protecting her son from their financial troubles, “I have to say no and I try to find creative ways to tell him why he can’t have something without saying, ‘I can’t afford that.’”

Another shares, voice cracking, “I’m a single mom, trying to put food on the table to support my son.  There is no eating out.  We don’t have a cell phone.  I mean, this is the limit. I’ve got to go by the budget.”

One man breaks down in tears speaking about his deteriorating situation at home and the feeling of helplessness in not being able to provide for his family in the way he would like. “Here I am pushing 40 years old with a baby and a new wife living at my mother-in-law’s house, which that’s got to make her feel proud looking at me on her couch going, ‘Ah, this is the man my daughter is going to spend the rest of her life with.’

“If I would have just met my wife 15 years earlier, at that point in time, I was making enough money. I would have had the time and the money, she would not had to have worked, she could have spent all her time if she wanted to with our kids. I would have been able to do the weekend thing, the whole backyard barbecue American dream. But you don’t get that anymore. And instead, you fight and struggle.”

These are the faces of Obama’s America.  They’re not looking for handouts; they simply want the dignity of an honest day’s work that enables them to provide for their families.

The political reality of the situation is that if Obama is given a second term, it will not get any better – it will likely be much worse.  Obama’s policies are making the duration of this downturn way too long and that is why it is urgent to make a change in leadership.

People are very frustrated and at the end of the day, even if they like Obama, they will force themselves to vote with their wallet in mind - and their children’s wallet.

Obama hasn’t brought progress and we can do much better – but time is of the essence.

Aislin / Montreal Gazette (click to view more cartoons by Aislin)

Over the weekend “Occupy Unmasked” debuted in a limited theatrical release in Dallas, Denver, Orange County, and Phoenix.  These four theaters produced an impressive per-screen average of $11,000 and we’ve extended the run in these locations through October 4^th.

On the heels of this successful theater launch, “Occupy Unmasked” is now available on Video on Demand.  The VOD providers carrying “Occupy Unmasked” include iTunes; Amazon; Charter; Comcast; Google Play; DirecTV; Playstation3; Suddenlink; Time Warner; Verizon FIOS; VUDU; Xbox Zune; AT&T UVerse; Cablevision; Cox; and Dish Network.  (For more information on these VOD options please go here.)

Having a plethora of media choices with which to view our film gives us an incredible opportunity to put our message about the realities of the dark underbelly of the Occupy Wall Street movement in front of millions of Americans.  The truth must be told about the Occupy Wall Street movement and after a successful limited theater release now many more Americans can see this explosive film on VOD.

“Occupy Unmasked” must be seen to be believed and now many more millions will have that opportunity right in their own homes.  Please check your local cable provider to see if “Occupy Unmasked” is available on demand on your TV or download and watch the film online.

As Governor Sarah Palin said about our documentary, “‘Occupy Unmasked’ is going to blow you away.”   We can’t wait to see the reaction to the film as more and more views discover it.

“Occupy Unmasked,” takes audiences into the Occupy Wall Street camps across the country in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Portland, Denver and Oakland for an up-close look at what’s happened there and who’s at the heart of the movement.  Exclusive footage and first-hand eyewitness accounts tell the story of the criminal activity and raw brutality in the camps – much of which has not been reported by the mainstream media.

Featuring the late conservative icon Andrew Breitbart, as well as former leftist radicals turned patriotic citizen journalists Brandon Darby, David Horowitz, Pam Keys, Anita MonCrief, Mandy Nagy, and Lee Stranahan, among others, this film delves beneath the surface of the Occupy movement to show its anarchist roots, led by those who advocate the use of violence and intimidation as protest tactics.  These tactics stem back to the anti-war protests of the 1960’s, the anti-nuclear weapons protests of the 80’s, the WTO protests and Environmental Liberation Front of the 90’s, and the IMF protests of recent years.

With The Hope and The Change on television and Occupy Unmasked on the big screen and VOD, Citizens United is changing the political debate in America in new ways – and we are excited to begin the conversation.

Eric Allie / PoliticalCartoons.com (click to view more cartoons by Allie)

Along with HDNet Movies, this documentary will be shown on, AXS TV, RFD-TV, FamilyNet, and Rural TV.  The film is also licensed to Lesea Broadcasting for World Harvest Television and their broadcast stations: WHMB (Indianapolis, IN), WHNO (New Orleans, LA), KWHB (Tulsa, OK), KWHE (Honolulu, HI), KWHS (Colorado Springs, CO) and WHME (South Bend, IN). (Click here for information on checking your local listings for the channel and schedule.)

It is important to note that these distribution opportunities would have been against the law a mere three years ago. This is why I went to the United States Supreme Court in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission – to fight for the right to produce a political documentary.  “The Hope and The Change” is the result of that long court battle for free speech rights.

Already “The Hope and The Change” is receiving rave reviews.  Sean Hannity dedicated an hour long special to the film where he interviewed the Americans featured in our film along with writer/director Stephen K. Bannon, former Democratic pollster Pat Caddell, and me.  Hannity declared “The Hope and The Change” to be the “most powerful documentary I’ve ever seen in my life – no way anyone who’s seen this film could vote for Obama.”

Jedediah Bila wrote on FoxNews.com, “If you care about the 2012 election and value the voices of regular Americans who lost hope in their hope and change candidate, this is one documentary you won’t want to miss.”

“This film is a pointed reminder of just how much candidate Obama promised—and how much he has failed to deliver,” said the Weekly Standard.

We know this is a powerful film because “The Hope and The Change” exposes the hard truth that many Democrats and independents are suffering at the hands of President Obama’s failed policies.   The documentary examines the journey of forty Americans – Democrats and Independents – who supported and voted for President Obama four years ago.  The diverse cast encompasses a broad cross-section of America’s racial and socio-economic spectrum and comes from seven swing states that experts say will decide the 2012 presidential election. Viewers will see how our nation’s economy and society has changed over the past four years under the policies of President Obama.

Stephen Bannon and I traveled to Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia to search out these authentic American stories from citizens who have lost faith in their President.  President Obama campaigned in 2008 on “Hope” and “Change” and what these stories from Americans show is that they are disappointed in the direction of the country.

The ability to reach 130 million American cumulative households with these historic network deals is astonishing and we will aggressively market this film so Americans can finally have an unfiltered conversation they deserve.  Please tune in and share this viewing information with your friends and family!

Nate Beeler / Columbus Dispatch (click to view more cartoons by Beeler)

That is why the Obama Administration’s handling of the threat of a nuclear Iran is so troubling.  Since President Obama took office he has done nothing to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon.  Obama’s policy is one of “engagement” with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  Clearly, this policy has not worked because the centrifuges keep on spinning and they are developing the necessary fuel for a weapon.  President Obama should have imposed crippling sanctions from Day One instead of negotiating for negotiation’s sake.

The Obama Administration also missed an opportunity in 2009 when the Green Revolution took hold in Iran.  Many Iranians took to the streets of Iran’s capital city to protest Ahmadinejad, but as the regime quickly put the rebellion down with the use of deadly force, the Obama Administration stood idly by.  If the Obama Administration used its assets in the region wisely, there was a brief opportunity to take out Ahmadinejad in 2009 and encourage a free Iran.  But instead they preferred to continue the course of “engagement” with that brutal regime.

A nuclear weapon in the hands of such an erratic country would be a threat to us all.  A nuclear Iran could very well lead to an arms race in the Middle East that would destabilize an already volatile region and harm global security.  The likelihood that a nuclear device would land in the hands of an international terrorist organization would drastically increase because Iran is a state sponsor of terror.  Even if Iran does not directly launch an attack, can we be sure a dirty bomb wouldn’t “accidentally” slip into the hands of terrorists bent on topping the death and destruction of 9-11?

If Iran were to get a nuclear weapon, not only would America’s national security be in jeopardy but Israel, too, would be at risk.  Israel has been a staunch ally of ours in a region of the world where America can count the number of allies we have on one hand.  Time and again, the Obama Administration has not worked with Israel in good faith.  The Iranian regime has said repeatedly that they would like nothing more than to wipe Israel off of the map – if America was threatened with such language, we would react decisively.  However, the Obama Administration has been trying to undermine Israel’s response to one if its most challenging security threats since its founding.   Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton continues to warn that Iran is moving forward to putting nuclear warheads on long range ballistic missiles and President Obama has failed to stop them.

In Citizens United Productions’ film America At Risk: The War With No Name, hosted by Newt and Callista Gingrich, we lay out the dangers still facing our country in the wake of September 11^th.  With Iran on the path to developing nuclear weapons, the United States must show a position of strength.  We are dealing with people for whom not even mutually assured destruction is a deterrent, “it’s an inducement because that is what they’re hoping for,” as Bernard Lewis says in America at Risk.  Iran has continued to thumb its nose at America and the world.

As we remember those who died eleven years ago and the many who have died in defense of freedom since September 11^th, we must not forget the lessons learned from that fateful day.  I fear that the Obama Administration, with its inaction on Iran’s nuclear program, does not realize the dangers a nuclear Iran poses to the world.  America must be at the tip of the spear on this issue, not leading from behind.

Recall that while campaigning in 2008, candidate Obama knocked President George W. Bush, for the debt he incurred, saying, “That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.”  If $4 trillion over eight years is “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic,” what would you call the $5.4 trillion in debt that President Obama has racked up in less than four years?

Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to view more cartoons by McKee)

Since President Obama was sworn into office, he presided over a 50 percent increase in our national debt, from $10.6 trillion to $16 trillion.  During that same time, the burden per household increased by about 50 percent, from $90,000 to $136,000.

In the second month of his presidency, Obama said, “I’m pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office. This will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult decisions and face challenges we’ve long neglected.”  Not only has he not halved the deficit, this is our fourth year in a row of $1 trillion and above deficits.  The President has not led his party to make difficult decisions and face challenges, in fact, it has been 1225 days since the Democrat-led Senate has passed a budget.

President Obama went on to say in February 2009, “I refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay – and that means taking responsibility right now, in this administration, for getting our spending under control.”  Instead of getting spending under control for the sake of our children, President Obama enacted an almost $1 trillion failed stimulus program as well as rammed through Obamacare which will cost almost $2 trillion in the next 10 years alone.

This is not hope: the situation for future generations looks dire.  This is not the change Americans wanted.  We are not going forward, we are going backward.

On Thursday night, Americans will hear President Obama once again accept his party’s nomination for president.  I am sure we will hear the familiar soaring rhetoric and promises of “hope” and “change,” as Obama tries to pretend that the last four years never happened.

On Thursday afternoon, mere hours before President Obama takes the stage, we will be reminding people of his empty promises with a screening of our latest film The Hope and The Change during the DNC in Charlotte, NC.  (RSVP for tickets to September 6^th’s 3pm screening HERE, our other film Occupy Unmasked will play at 12pm – RSVP HERE).  The Hope and The Change tells the stories of 40 disaffected Obama supporters from across the country, who are suffering under his policies.

In interview after interview in The Hope and The Change, former Obama voters say they are tired of hearing the same words over and over again without any improvement.  For 30 months, President Obama repeated the phrase “it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report” in his monthly jobs statement.  Meanwhile, the jobless rate has been stuck at over 8 percent unemployment for 42 straight months.  This is not hope and change.

Americans want more than just a good speaker this time around.  They want a leader who will fix the economy, create jobs, and pay down our debt.  They want an energy independence policy that will lower prices, not dramatically skyrocket them; a monetary plan that will restore our AAA credit rating, not downgrade it; and budget solutions that will strengthen our future generations, not bankrupt them.

We have seen the hope and the change and it has brought us $16 trillion in debt.  Can we afford another four years of this?

To answer that question, I sought out forty Americans – registered Democrats and independents – who supported and voted for President Obama four years ago. Citizens United Productions’ latest film “The Hope and The Change” is the result of these conversations.

Eric Allie / PoliticalCartoons.com (click to view more cartoons by Allie)

For the last year, I traveled with Writer/Director Stephen K. Bannon to the key swing states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia and found authentic American stories from citizens who have lost faith in their President. Our 60 minute documentary tells of the daily lives of hard-working Democrats and Independents through unscripted and unrehearsed interviews. Our diverse cast represents a broad cross-section of America’s racial and socio-economic spectrum, who all describe their personal struggles under the current administration.

The disappointment and frustration felt by many is reflected in the quotes from the interviews featured in the film:

“I supported Obama the first time. I don’t see the change.”

“I thought, just like a lot of people, he promised the change and we all got fooled.”

“He’s done a lousy job.”

“I voted for the wrong guy.”

“I think the legacy of Barack Obama is going to be that he made a lot of promises, got into office and couldn’t fulfill them.”

“When I hear the phrase ‘hope and change,’ I definitely think of bait and switch.”

“It’s almost like buyer’s remorse. You just have that tendency of wanting to almost take the item back and see if you can get your money back.”

“Obama’s a great con artist.”

“I’m not interested in what he says anymore, I’m interested in what he’s done.”

“We’ve tried change and this is what change got us.”

And, perhaps the most poignant, “Can we go through another four years of this?”

The powerful voices in “The Hope and The Change” will resonate with many citizens across the country who are disillusioned with the Presidency of Barack Obama. This persuasive documentary will change many minds and get people off the fence and into the game.

I didn’t want to make a film that would simply preach to the choir. I want to reach the “Reagan Democrats” and pragmatic independents; the people who believe in the American Dream and the idea that if you work hard and play by the rules you can get ahead. These are the very people who will decide this most critical election for future generations.

The everyday Americans in this film who regret their votes for Obama will have a major impact on the debates that are currently raging across America. Our goal is to have as many people as possible see “The Hope and The Change” and, from that, start a conversation. This Friday, Fox News’ Sean Hannity will air an hour long special on our documentary. Then the film will be screened during the RNC in Tampa next Tuesday, August 28th at 4pm (free tickets and more information available at CitizensUnited.org/RNC). This will be followed by a presentation in Charlotte during the DNC and a limited theatrical release in September, with other deals in the works.

President Obama campaigned in 2008 on “The Hope and The Change” and what the stories from Americans in “The Hope and The Change” show is that they are disappointed in the direction of the country. Viewers will see how their nation’s economy and society has changed for the worse over the past four years under the failed policies of President Obama.

Again, it must be asked, “Can we go through another four years of this?”

Nate Beeler / Columbus Dispatch (click to view more cartoons by Beeler)

Paul Ryan will be relentless and he must be licking his chops at the prospect of picking apart Joe Biden in the VP debate this fall.  Sheriff Joe has stepped in it so many times it’s amazing he’s still on the ticket.  You can be sure that if Paul Ryan had made the same racially charged comments Biden made when he said the Republican Party is “going to put y’all back in chains,” that the entire Left and mainstream media would be calling for his head.  The double standard that is being displayed is astonishing, but Ryan can handle it.

Rep. Paul Ryan is an excellent pick because he understands budgets and big ideas and doesn’t shrink away from tough votes or speaking truth to power.  He dressed down President Obama at a forum on Obamacare and earlier this year there was a remarkable exchange between Rep. Ryan and Obama’s Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on the budget.  After Ryan hammered him for having no plan to get the debt under control, Geithner admitted, “You are right to say we’re not coming before you today to say we have a definitive solution to that long term problem.  What we do know is we don’t like yours.”

The Obama administration basically admitted that it didn’t care to even bother to feign a realistic attempt to craft a long term budget, all it cares about is tearing down its opponents.  Accordingly, Obama’s budget was unanimously rejected in the Senate 99-0 and went down 414-0 in the House.

Where President Obama has stumbled, Rep. Paul Ryan has filled the leadership void by stepping up to propose real solutions for our long term economic problems.  For the first time in generations, a clear plan has been produced to rein in the debt and reform entitlement spending.

Ryan’s deep commitment to America’s younger generations is unbreakable.  He has dedicated himself to leaving them a freer, more secure, and more prosperous nation.  He sees the backbreaking debt that is being piled onto our children.  He knows that Medicare and Social Security as we know it will end for today’s youth if we stay on the current path.  He has an eye for the future that goes beyond this election cycle and that vision is exactly what this country needs right now.  In Washington, where courageous actions are sparse, Paul Ryan has chosen the tough path time and time again – something voters will recognize.

As we saw after the announcement, the energy is back in Mitt Romney’s campaign with the selection of Rep. Paul Ryan.  In Wisconsin alone, over 10,000 people showed up to see Romney and Ryan give stirring speeches that whipped up the crowd.  The conservative base is excited for November and the momentum is clearly on the side of the Romney-Ryan ticket right now.  This enthusiasm shows that the American people are hungry for proven leadership and real solutions instead of the empty suit and the false promises of the man currently occupying the White House.

This election is about two philosophies and Americans will reject Obama’s failed liberal policies that have brought us over $15 trillion in debt and over 8 percent unemployment in favor of Romney and Ryan’s plans to fix our economy, bring down the debt, and solve our budget problems.  The Romney-Ryan ticket brings a much needed competence and seriousness to the debate that Obama-Biden simply cannot match.

Nate Beeler / Columbus Dispatch (click to view more cartoons by Beeler)

To top off this flabbergasting and transparently false attack, Dirty Harry went straight into the gutter by dragging Mitt Romney’s late father Governor George Romney into the mix adding, “His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son.”  So despicable and unconscionable was this attack that even The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, typically a shill for the Left, hit Dirty Harry for “playing the dead card” in a segment called, “You, Harry Reid, Are Really, Really Terrible.”

Normally, such an embarrassingly over-the-top charge would be quietly walked back and clarified away, but instead Dirty Harry doubled down on his empty allegations.   Somehow, Reid even had the gall to turn it around on Romney and took to the Senate floor to say, “Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn’t.”  To use the Senate floor as a platform to wage false attacks against Mitt Romney for the Obama campaign is a disgrace to the office that he holds.

Astoundingly, Reid dug in even further when pressed to substantiate his accusations by saying, “I don’t think the burden should be on me. The burden should be on him.  He’s the one I’ve alleged has not paid any taxes.”  In Dirty Harry’s world, you are guilty until proven innocent, no matter how reckless or outlandish the charge.

 What does President Obama think about Dirty Harry’s dirty tricks?  A reporter asked White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, “Does the president think that this allegation coming from Harry Reid, without any evidence, made on the Senate floor, is that below the belt? Does that cross the line?” Instead of disavowing Dirty Harry, Carney simply referred the media back to him and hit on the campaign message calling for Romney to release more tax records.  Clearly this is a campaign directive that comes right from the top.  Another reporter made an excellent point when he asked, “Why hasn’t [Obama] picked up the phone to ask Harry Reid to stop making a charge like that?”  As the leader of the party, Obama could certainly have told Dirty Harry that his indefensible charges were inappropriate and antithetical to the positive campaign he claims he wants to run.

The truth is that President Obama likes having an attack dog to get in the mud for him.  Dirty Harry is advancing the same issues the Obama campaign is trying to hit Romney on.  They are trying to smoke out more Romney tax returns so they can dig through them, twist the results, and ratchet up the class warfare rhetoric.  The campaign’s attacks on Romney’s wealth haven’t worked yet and they are desperate for fresh material to use in attack ads this fall because President Obama can’t run on his record.   His presidency has produced 42 straight months of 8 to 10 percent unemployment, $5 trillion added to our $16 trillion national debt, a downgrade of our AAA credit, and general economic malaise.   All the Obama campaign can do is viciously attack Romney and Dirty Harry, not up for reelection until 2016 yet hoping to retain his job as majority leader, is up to the task of playing dirty tricks.

Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to view more cartoons by McKee)

With the Left’s current war on business, fueled by President Obama’s divisive reelection campaign rhetoric, you’d think liberals would love a corporate purpose that wants to have a “positive influence.”  But to the chagrin of liberals and big city elites alike, Chick-fil-A invokes God in the foundation of their business culture.  Oh, the horror!

Dan Cathy, the president and chief operating officer of Chick-fil-A, whose father founded the company, has been made into some sort of boogeyman by the Left with the help of the mainstream media.  Last month on “The Ken Coleman Show,” Cathy made some “controversial” comments on gay marriage.  Cathy stated that he believes marriage is between a man and a woman.  Cathy then went onto say, “We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles.”

Those honest comments did not sit well with former Obama Chief of Staff now Mayor of Chicago Rahm Emmanuel.  Emmanuel, best known for using profanity on a daily basis, shot back at Chick-fil-A and supported a Chicago alderman’s call to ban the fast-food restaurant from Chicago.  There have been more than 300 murders in Chicago since the beginning of 2012.  You would think that would be the number one issue in a city that is dealing with a major crime wave, not to take spiteful action against a business that provides much needed jobs to Chicagoans.

Eventually, Emmanuel had to back-off from his initial comments after the Illinois chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said if Chicago instituted this ban it would be “viewpoint discrimination” and thus unconstitutional.  The ACLU has been staunchly in the corner of gay marriage, but even they see the over-the-top statements by Chicago’s mayor as an affront to the First Amendment.

Rahm Emmanuel was not the only mayor to take on Chick-fil-A. Mayors in Boston, San Francisco, and Washington, DC all have made remarks similar to those of Emmanuel.  Scandal plagued Washington, DC Mayor Vincent Gray even used the hashtag #hatechicken in a tweet about his stance on Chick-fil-A.  #HateChicken, really?  This type of demonizing rhetoric just shows how intolerant these liberal big city mayors are to views that differ from their own.  It is foolish for mayors to openly go after a business that bring jobs to their cities.

It is also troubling that these mayors initially believed that they have such power to shut out a business from their cities.  Of course, all of these mayors are liberals who evidently despise the free market and the First Amendment, but to shutout a business because of its religious beliefs is going down a slippery slope.  These mayors do get cover from the mainstream media because it is a Christian philosophy that they are lampooning and the media just go right along with it.

Thankfully, leaders like former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee are rallying to the cause of promoting Chick-fil-A and its Christian values.  Today, Americans all over the country will take part in Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, including us at Citizens United.  On Governor Huckabee’s Facebook event page alone more than 500,000 have signed up to attend by going to their local Chick-fil-A.  What has happened to this business because of their Christian beliefs is an outrage and I urge Americans to rally around Chick-fil-A.

Gary McCoy / PoliticalCartoons.com (click to view more cartoons by McCoy)

Although the Obama Administration wants Americans to believe that the Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate organization, nothing could be further from the truth.  A sense of friendship with a radical organization will only jeopardize America’s security in the long-run.  Americans must realize what the Muslim Brotherhood stands for.  Sharia law has spread into Europe and has taken hold in Egypt thanks to the Arab Spring.  Many Americans do not understand what Sharia law entails or, for that matter, have even heard of it.

Essentially, Sharia law is a rigid Islamic moral code that commingles religion and government.  Sharia law encompasses all facets of Muslim life from religion and finances, right down to personal hygiene. Before the U.S.-led invasion, Afghanistan was the center of Sharia law in the Muslim world, where women had no rights and were treated as second class citizens on a good day.

Andrew McCarthy is the former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York who successfully prosecuted Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, “the blind cleric,” for the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.  He has written a riveting and smart piece for National Review Online about how the State Department has bowed to the Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda.

There are many revelations that McCarthy touches on but the three that stand out are:

1. The State Department announced that the Obama Administration would be ‘satisfied’ with the election of a Muslim Brotherhood–dominated government in Egypt.

2. The State Department has collaborated with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a bloc of governments heavily influenced by the Brotherhood, in seeking to restrict American free-speech rights in deference to Sharia proscriptions against criticism of Islam.

3. The State Department and the Obama administration waived congressional restrictions in order to transfer $1.5 billion dollars in aid to Egypt after the Muslim Brotherhood’s victory in the parliamentary elections.

Perhaps the State Department thinks it is following the Godfather adage “keep your friends close but your enemies closer.”  However, the reality is the State Department is getting played by a nefarious group of Islamic extremists.  A strategic plan that was introduced as evidence in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation trial, the largest terrorist financing prosecution in our nation’s history, stated that the Muslim Brotherhood has as its goal “destroying Western civilization from within.”  The way to achieve this goal, according to the Muslim Brotherhood, is to employ a “civilization jihad” by influencing policy makers and government agencies.

Thankfully, Representatives Michele Bachmann, Trent Franks, Louie Gohmert, Tom Rooney, and Lynn Westmoreland sent letters to the inspectors general of the State, Justice, Defense and Homeland Security Departments and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to question if people within the government are being influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood.  These letters ask the inspectors general why policy has dramatically changed towards the Muslim Brotherhood under the Obama Administration.

These Members of Congress came under withering attack from both the Left and some in the Republican Party’s establishment for just doing their jobs as legislators.  If Americans understand what the Muslim Brotherhood is really about and how repressive their beliefs are, especially towards women, they would have the same questions.  President Obama and his State Department have bent over backwards to appease the Muslim Brotherhood.  Americans should be asking, “Why?”

Eric Allie / PoliticalCartoons.com (click to view more cartoons by Allie)

President Obama’s attacks on business fit his campaign’s narrative of Big Government and class warfare.  President Obama’s words are intended to foster a sense of envy and resentment of the business class.  He paints a picture of success in America as being merely the product of luck and government assistance won at the expense of poor, hardworking Americans.  In this view, success is unearned, undeserved, and unfair.

President Ronald Reagan warned of such cynicism in 1982:

“Since when do we in America believe that our society is made up of two diametrically opposed classes—one rich, one poor—both in a permanent state of conflict and neither able to get ahead except at the expense of the other? Since when do we in America accept this alien and discredited theory of social and class warfare? Since when do we in America endorse the politics of envy and division?”

To answer President Reagan’s questions, since President Obama was elected.  President Obama is crushing the American dream and destroying that which America was founded on and has made us the greatest country on earth.  It is freedom FROM government regulation that has allowed American ingenuity and entrepreneurship to flourish.  It is the concepts of rugged individualism and personal accomplishment that inspires exploration and innovation.

Small businesses, the economic engines that fuel the American economy, are the ultimate examples of the fulfillment of the American Dream, but President Obama dismisses the work it takes to build them.  The National Federation of Independent Business hit back at the President saying, “[President Obama’s] unfortunate remarks over the weekend show an utter lack of understanding and appreciation for the people who take a huge personal risk and work endless hours to start a business and create jobs.”

President Obama thinks the business community is the enemy and the government is the solution to all of our problems.  Well, with Obama’s liberal policies in place, unemployment is holding steady at over eight percent for the last 41 months, and consumer spending is down three months in a row.  Almost 88 million Americans are out of the workforce and one in seven are on food stamps.  What are President Obama’s solutions?  Extending unemployment benefits and gutting welfare reform to remove the work requirement.  These failed policies only prolong joblessness and promote a culture of government dependence.

America is an exceptional nation because of its people not because of bureaucrats in Washington.  President Obama’s liberal philosophy prevents him from understanding the American Dream because he thinks that Big Government must be in every American’s life like Obamacare.  By waging war on business and individualism, he is waging war on the American Dream.

Nate Beeler / Columbus Dispatch (click to vire more cartoons by Beeler)

We are at a crossroads in American history; with the U.S. Supreme Court’s disappointing approval of Obamacare, the U.S. faces its largest social welfare expansion since FDR’s New Deal. With the understanding that Obamacare is indeed a tax (contrary to what the president has said since the inception of his universal healthcare plan) we as Americans are due to face the biggest tax hike in American history.  Add the $675 billion in Obamacare tax increases to its $1.76 trillion cost over the next decade, and it is safe to say that generations of Americans will be paying for the fatally flawed policies of Barack Obama.

All this distrust from the American people does not even include reaction to the announcement that Obama wants to extend only part of the Bush tax cuts. This decision to raise taxes on families and small businesses making more than $250,000 a year is a prime example of the dishonest and hypocritical tactics Obama has taken on during his reelection campaign.  Back in 2009, President Obama said, “Normally, you don’t raise taxes in a recession, which is why we haven’t and why we have, instead, cut taxes.”  Well Mr. President, you should heed your own words instead of playing class warfare because it might be good for your campaign.

The change, hope, and progress that the American electorate was promised in 2008 didn’t include the current economic climate of 41 straight months of unemployment over 8 percent.  President Obama has been reduced to falling back on old and tired rhetoric to distract the American people from how bad our country’s outlook truly is.  Almost every month, Obama has repeatedly urged the American people to not “read too much into” the status of the economy based upon the monthly unemployment reports.  Obama is playing games with Americans telling them not to pay attention to a real piece of evidence which shows Obama’s economic policies have only hurt the U.S.

President Obama has followed through on his pledge to change America with his presidency.  He has implemented policies that are against the center-right nature of our country.  For the first time in the history of our great country, our children may be worse off than we were.  Our younger generations will face higher debt ceilings and larger, more extreme financial woes than ever before.  President Obama is mortgaging our future and harming the future existence of America as we know it.  He’s brought “change,” alright, but it’s change we don’t want.

Nate Beeler / Columbus Dispatch (click to view more cartoons by Beeler)

A City Upon A Hill, produced by Citizens United, explores the concept of American Exceptionalism from its origin to the present day.  The idea of America as an exceptional nation began with John Winthrop, a leader of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who urged his fellow settlers in 1630 to create a “city upon a hill,” a model community for the world.  This wasn’t a coronation, but a challenge and an opportunity that has been seized upon by great American leaders ever since.

The United States is an exceptional nation that stands above all others because of its unique devotion to freedom and opportunity.  At the time of our founding no other country had adopted the radical ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  No other nation had declared, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”  In the American understanding, our rights are not gifts or privileges conferred by kings or legislatures; they are endowments that we’ve received from God Himself.  The government didn’t give them to us and the government cannot take them away.

Whereas revolution led to anarchy in France, the American Revolution produced a culture of freedom and individual rights.  The states united to form a government of the people, by the people, and for the people to secure the blessings of liberty.  The founders devised an ingenious system of checks and balances intended to place limits on government in a way that allows individuals to maximize their talents to produce a successful, prosperous, and free society.

During his travels in 1831, French writer Alexis de Tocqueville recognized this.  He observed that America was an exceptional nation with a special role to play in human history.  Tocqueville wrote that, unlike Europe, where social standing defined a citizen, America was a new republic where liberty, equality, individualism, and laissez faire economics defined the “American creed.”  Tocqueville came to America because he thought it was an exceptional place; it was a democratic republic at a time when most of Europe was monarchical.  He saw in the United States a culture arising out of limited government that was unlike anything he had ever seen.

Is America still such a place?  Unfortunately, President Barack Obama and liberals in Congress want to move America to a European style of socialism.  From Egypt to France, President Obama went on an apology tour telling global leaders that America is just one of many exceptional nations, and that we are not unique.  He infamously said, “I believe in American Exceptionalism just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

The cause of freedom is the cause of America.  Each of us must be prepared to meet great challenges to ensure that we remain a safe, free, and prosperous nation.  As President Ronald Reagan said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”  As we celebrate our Independence Day and honor those who have fought and died to preserve it, we must resolve to “keep” our republic and the spirit of American Exceptionalism that our Founding Fathers passed down to us.

John Cole / Scranton Times-Tribune (click to view more cartoons by Cole)

A disastrous plan from the start, “Fast and Furious” ultimately led to U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s murder in the winter of 2010.  As with any government program that has gone awry, the U.S. Congress must investigate what happened so the same mistakes that led to the death of a federal officer, and who knows how many Mexican citizens, never happens again.

That is why it is truly alarming that President Obama has invoked executive privilege on potentially damaging documents related to the case to seemingly protect himself and Attorney General Eric Holder.  If the Obama Administration really believed that these “Fast and Furious” documents fell under the executive privilege, then why did they wait until the last minute to invoke it?  This reeks of politics – in the business this is known as a “frivolous claim of executive privilege.”

As we have seen, President Obama has been quite different from candidate Obama.  On June 20, 2008, four years ago to the day that Obama invoked his own executive privilege, candidate Obama said in regards to President Bush invoking executive privilege during the U.S Attorney fiasco, “I think that nobody is above the law.” He continued, “You know, as I recall, Richard Nixon mounted similar arguments. That’s not how we operate. We’re a nation of laws and not men and women. So, you know — and my — that’s a precedent I don’t mind living with as President of the United States.”  President Obama should live by his precedent from four years ago and come clean – if not, the American people will wonder what he is hiding from them.

As the Chief Investigator for the House Oversight Committee during the Clinton years, I have seen this bad movie play out before.  President Clinton used the executive privilege as a stall tactic to try and thwart the investigations that would eventually lead to his impeachment. With last week’s actions, President Obama is clearly trying to protect his administration and the fatally flawed policies of his incompetent Attorney General Eric Holder from similar Congressional investigation.

It is plain to see that Mr. Holder played some role in “Fast and Furious” and the Obama Administration is trying its best to cover it up.  For an administration that has been leaking like a sieve on life and death national security issues, invoking executive privilege on “Fast and Furious” shows they are trying to hide something that will have a negative impact on Obama’s reelection campaign.  They have been stonewalling this investigation to the point that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee voted to hold Holder in contempt of Congress.  If the full U.S. House of Representatives votes on Thursday to hold him in contempt, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia will have to determine if criminal charges are to be filed.

The Obama Administration claims to be the most transparent in history.  Attorney General Holder and President Obama can’t run and hide from the American people behind the safe-guard of executive privilege.  It is incumbent upon them to now accept responsibility for their actions and be open about “Fast and Furious.”  The family of slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry deserves to know what contributed to his death and the American people deserve to know that the persons responsible for such heinous actions will be held accountable.

Eric Allie / PoliticalCartoons.com (click to view more cartoons by Allie)

States such as California and Obama’s old stomping ground of Illinois have adopted liberal deficit spending policies that mirror the President’s excessive government policies. These states do not have much else to show for their liberal agenda other than high unemployment and a large pile of debt. Illinois posts an 8.7 percent unemployment rate, which is well above the national average.  In California, the bastion of liberal ideology, Sacramento is swimming in debt that is approaching the $16 billion mark, on the heels of a credit downgrade.   President Obama’s liberal ideology is failing at all levels of government, not just at the federal level where he is to blame.

On the other hand, states like Ohio and Wisconsin have done a tremendous job cutting the toxic fat from excessive government spending and programs. Both Republican Governors John Kasich of Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin have reported substantial growth and considerable job creation over the past fiscal year. Ohio ranks 4^th in the nation for job creation in the past year to date, and Wisconsin has not seen an increase in unemployment or underemployment since Gov. Walker implemented his pro-growth policies, while 23,000 new jobs were added to the Badger State.

Why is it that we don’t see the mainstream media giving praise to Governors Kasich and Walker for doing what they promised when they were elected, and getting their state’s fiscal house in order? All we get is a frenzy about a recall election in Wisconsin where the liberal media and Big Labor lost in a huge way.  We should commend the governors for doing what is necessary for their states, and for that matter our country, at a time when the President of the United States is failing the American people at every turn.

President Obama is showing Americans that he just does not understanding how the free market system works – nor does he care.  We find ourselves in a situation where the impact of Obamanomics has set our country back a long way.  We are on a path towards bankruptcy and President Obama must take his head out of the sand.  Wisconsin and Ohio are blueprints for President Obama to right our ship of state.  Unfortunately, I have no faith that he will take cues from these states because he is so beholden to his own failed liberal ideology.

Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by Allie)

If Obamacare is upheld it will be an economic disaster. The President promised that Obamacare would cut the deficit by $143 billion over ten years, but Sen. Ron Johnson has pointed out that “instead of saving $143 billion, we are adding $54 billion to our deficit.” President Obama also said that Obamacare would “only” cost about $940 billion over 10 years. In March, the Congressional Budget Office reported that the gross cost between 2012-2022 would be $1.762 trillion. Every year the estimated costs of Obamacare get worse and worse, it is a ticking time bomb hanging over our heads.

If some aspects of the law are shut down or reversed, the Obamacare ruling has the potential to save a significant amount of money, according to a recent POLITICO article. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has even estimated savings totaling more than $1 trillion if certain clauses, such as the individual mandate, insurance market reforms, and others, are deemed unconstitutional and cut from the law.

Of course, a complete strike down of Obamacare would be the best outcome for the country, negating the $1.762 trillion 10 year price tag. “The spending commitments in this bill are humongous. In my judgment, the budget will be far, far better off if the whole law is struck down,” said Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. The country will save trillions over the coming decades.

What would become of the savings? The POLITICO article states that “many wonks have their eyes on the money.”  “Wonk,” by the way, is code in Washington for staffers and special interests. This is a total outrage; it is the people’s money, not the government’s. The funds must go back to the Treasury to pay down our crushing $15.7 trillion national debt. America cannot sustain its continued spending binge. On its current path, America is looking more and more like Greece and Spain than the vibrant country in which we used to live.

The conservative movement must have a clear message if Obamacare is partially or completely struck down by the Supreme Court. We must ensure that the funds set aside for this law aren’t squandered on other frivolous liberal initiatives. At a time when the national debt is nearing $16 trillion and our budget deficit is projected to be $1.2 trillion, it is apparent that we must attempt to restore this country to a somewhat sustainable financial standing. It would be fiscally and morally irresponsible for Congress and the White House not to make an attempt to right the financial woes that Obamacare would exacerbate.

As you can see, the stakes at the Supreme Court couldn’t be higher.  Struck down or upheld, as Obamacare goes, so goes the fate of our economic future.

Joe Heller / Green Bay Press-Gazette (click to view more cartoons by Heller)

The partisans at MSNBC were trying to spin the May unemployment numbers before they even came out, trying to claim that the economy was getting better in presidential swing states.  Well, when 8:30 AM EST came around, the news out of the Labor Department was not good for struggling Americans.  Once again the “experts” were “shocked” at the bad news.  But if you look at the legacy of the liberal Big Government agenda, this shouldn’t be a surprise.  The truth is there is no recovery and won’t be with this President who is married to this economy killing ideology.

We are heading into the Obama Administration’s fourth annual “Recovery Summer.”  Every year we are promised the president will have a “laser-like” focus on jobs.  The fact is that President Obama is more worried about raising $1 billion for his reelection than getting jobs created.

When Obama complains on the campaign trail that his efforts are being stymied by Congress, the media inevitably neglect to mention that the Senate is controlled by Democrats.  The Republican-led House of Representatives has passed 27 job-creation bills that have gone on to die in Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Senate.  While Obama waxes on about a “to-do” list, Democrats in the Senate dismiss it and point to their own priorities.  Senate Democrats have not produced a budget since March 2009 and yet the President still tries to paint the Republican Party as the roadblock.  This strategy is not working.  How long before the panic sets in for the Left and they take this campaign straight down the gutter?

Families across America are hurting, but the Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress have responded with failure after failure.  Let’s not forget Obama promised in 2009 that if his Stimulus Bill passed, we would not see the unemployment rate go above 8 percent.  Fast forward to 2012 when we have seen 40 straight months of 8 percent and above unemployment, the longest period of time since the Great Depression.  In May, the CBO revised its estimate of the cost of the stimulus bill up from $787 billion to $831 billion.  It also reported that the stimulus added only 200,000 to 1.5 million new jobs.  According to James Pethokoukis, that equates to $4.1 million to $540,000 per job!  This is what Obama style government intervention looks like.

What does President Obama have to show for his three and a half years in office?  For all the talk of a Republican “war on women,” CNSNews.com reports that 766,000 more women are unemployed today than when Obama was sworn in.  The Obama Administration is not prioritizing women at the most important level – fixing our economy.  The youth of America are being similarly hit, with more than half of them under or unemployed.  The labor rate participation is near record lows at 63.8 percent, with over 88 million people out of work.  Under and unemployment nationally went up 0.3 to 14.8 percent.  With economic indicators getting worse, many fear we are heading into a double-dip recession.

President Obama himself has said, “If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.”  He has even admitted that people are not better off than they were four years ago.

Mr. President, we agree with you.  America can do better.  It is time to move forward with new leadership who will finally focus on our economy and restoring America to greatness.

Pat Bagley / Salt Lake Tribune (click to view more cartoons by Bagley)

The irony is that the youth movement that so fervently advocated for Obama is the one being the most harmed by his failed policies. The young citizens who are currently out of work, out of hope, and entering into the vicious cycle of under-employment were some of President Obama’s biggest supporters during the 2008 election. They were promised such great things as “hope” and “change” for the future, only to see first-hand the complete failure of the Obama administration to stimulate our economy or produce new jobs. The only type of “New Beginning” that President Obama has produced is the beginning of the new trends of Americans dropping out of the labor force, rapid inflation because of an unstable US dollar, and extreme interest rates on loans that make it difficult to borrow money or expand one’s personal or professional opportunities. The Obama campaign’s new slogan is “Forward,” much like where our spending and gas prices are going.

The new generation looking for work is failing to find any substantive jobs, postponing their entrance into the workforce, and continuing to be dependent on their parents. Student loans are being defaulted on at a high rate, creating a downward spiral which perpetuates our debt crisis. Because of all the uncertainty created by Obama’s administration and his failed economic policies, the youth in our country and the young voters Obama counted on in the past are jumping ship, and realizing that the hope and change he promised is nothing more than indecision and uncertainty: indecision on which direction our country should and will be heading, and uncertainty over how or what the future will bring. Young Americans were the cornerstone of Obama’s campaign in 2008 but could potentially lead to his downfall in 2012.

Obama’s economic policies have made it nearly impossible for people to reach out of their comfort zones and display the type of good old American ingenuity that we are known for.  Young Americans must decide whether they can afford four more years of Obama. This young generation must be the one to demand innovative economic solutions from its leaders. It’s their future and their time to step up.

Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by Allie)

President Obama has a long history of bashing lobbyists publicly, while welcoming them with open arms behind closed doors. As a candidate, Obama said, “I don’t take a dime of their [lobbyists’] money, and when I am president, they won’t find a job in my White House.” Now that he is president, both of those claims have proven false.

President Obama bemoans the influence of big money and lobbying in elections, yet many of his top campaign bundlers are lobbyists. He got around his promise not to take their money with a very narrow definition of the term “lobbyist,” limiting it only to those registered with the U.S. Senate.

As a candidate, Obama promised to ban lobbyists from his administration, but several former K Streeters have found their way into senior positions on his staff. After the election, Obama quickly created a loophole in his pledge by granting waivers to the lobbyists he wanted on his team. Unsurprisingly, some who have left the White House have already found plush jobs with lobbying firms. There is a revolving door between Pennsylvania Avenue and K Street.

Obama pledged to increase transparency by publishing White House visitor logs, but did so only after dragging his feet and being sued for the records. His staff has also found a way to circumvent the logs by hosting meetings with lobbyists and special interests outside the White House at local coffee shops. For all the thousands of official White House visitors that the Post sifted through, how many more met with staffers secretly offsite?

As the Post notes, Obama recently said, “A lot of folks see the amounts of money that are being spent and the special interests that dominate and the lobbyists that always have access, and they say to themselves, maybe I don’t count.” President Obama certainly isn’t doing anything to allay these fears – in fact, his actions are perpetuating them. It seems that unless you are a lobbyist, you don’t have access. One White House visitor is even quoted as saying, “The whole process was interesting for me. It’s a little scary. You need a lobbyist to get a meeting.”

While President Obama’s hypocritical rhetoric on lobbying reform deserves the attention of all Americans who expect honesty from their leaders, it should surprise no one. On issue after issue, the liberal mainstream media covers for Obama. The media helped him get elected in 2008 and are actively doing it again this year. Obama is an accessory to this activity because any responsible politician with a conscience should have the decency not to make these kinds of promises in the first place. By now, we know Mr. Obama well enough to know that he can’t possibly believe his own words – he just knows it sounds good.

Dave Granlund / Politicalcartoons.com (click to view more cartoons by Granlund)

During last year’s debt limit debate, President Obama would not budge on his plan to raise taxes on American families and businesses, and he refused to enact the necessary spending reductions to make America solvent. The two sides were log jammed until they agreed to save nearly $1 trillion immediately, with another $1.2 trillion in additional spending cuts at a later date.  The fight spawned the much maligned debt “super committee” which was bound to fail from the get-go because Democrats were never going to waiver on their failed liberal policies in the face of our unsustainable national debt.

When the shamefully but not surprisingly, super committee did indeed fail, the clock started to tick on massive cuts to our military.  Congress, in its infinite wisdom, is using our men and women in uniform as bargaining chips.  To meet the $1.2 trillion in cuts, defense and domestic programs will have to be cut evenly over the next decade.  The cuts, also known in Washington parlance as a “sequester,” are set to take effect on January 2, 2013, cutting a total of $109 billion from both domestic and defense spending in the first year.

If the defense cuts are fully realized, then $500 billion would be cut over the next decade – and that is on top of the $487 billion in cuts already planned.  These massive cuts would cripple our nation’s military at a time when we are seeing the rise of China and are still engaged in the War on Terrorism.  Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said at a Congressional hearing last fall, “We would have the smallest ground force since 1940, the smallest number of ships since 1915, and the smallest Air Force in its history,” if the cuts were fully implemented.  In essence, America would not be a military power anymore and one can only imagine what would happen on the world stage.  Why is our national security being compromised when everyone knows entitlement reform is the real solution?

Thankfully, the Republican-led House of Representatives passed legislation that would help alleviate the cuts to our military.  The Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act of 2012, sponsored by Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI), would right the wrong of these brutal cuts to the military.  The legislation would cut the implementation of Obamacare as well as slow the growth of Medicaid, and revamp the food-stamp program.  Naturally, like with other pieces of legislation that actually reform the nanny state, this one has no chance in the Democrat-led U.S. Senate.  Harry Reid and his colleagues on the Left would rather hold our men and women in uniform hostage than cut their precious spending programs.

Besides the material implications of these cuts, soldiers and their families will be negatively impacted as well.  Assistant Marine Commandant General Jon Dunford said last week during a Congressional hearing that the military might have to “break faith” with those serving in Afghanistan when it comes to education, job, and health benefits.  Defaulting on a promise made by the government to our troops in the field is demoralizing.  Our government must do better, and actions like these will cripple our all-volunteer military.

President Obama should not be playing class warfare with our nation’s military, and these cuts must not take effect next January or our national security will be in jeopardy.  Congress got itself into the mess and now they must get us out.  I have faith in the House of Representatives, but the Senate will use our men and women in uniform as pawns in President Obama’s class warfare game.  How sad, especially during a month when we honor the soldiers who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.

Nate Beeler / Washington Examiner (click to view more cartoons by Beeler)

The policies of President Obama have perpetuated the mindset that it’s alright to stay dependent on the government for as long as you want.  That might sound swell if we were in newly Socialist France but in America there has to be a better way.  President Obama said the new jobs report was “good news” as he stumped in the swing state of Virginia.  Good news?  When nearly 37 percent of the American workforce has given up looking for a job – the most since 1981 – that is terrible news.  President Obama does not want to talk about the decreasing employment pool because it takes away from the narrative that the economy is getting better.  I have been traveling around states like Ohio and Florida recently and I can tell you it is not getting better out there.

Over seven million Americans are underemployed and those who do have a job often have to work up to three jobs just to keep up with the bills.  On top of the bad economy, the rise of regulation and energy prices is essentially a tax hike on all Americans.  America needs solutions that will not only create jobs but also limit the size and scope of government.  There are currently 27 job-creating pieces of legislation that have passed the Republican-led House of Representatives but stalled in the Democrat-led Senate.  Harry Reid’s Senate is a roadblock to recovery.  It is a shame that the Senate, will not do the people’s business because they are clinging to a failed liberal ideology.

Congressman Scott Garrett (R-NJ), along with many members of The Republican Study Committee, has introduced the Jobs Through Growth Act (H.R. 3400).  This pro-growth piece of legislation will reform the U.S. tax code by making it simpler and flatter.  By taking a hacksaw to the current tax code, jobs will be created by putting more money into the pockets of entrepreneurs who will then reinvest in their companies, make them grow, and hire more workers.

The second part of this vital piece of legislation deals with the overregulation by Big Government.  Small businesses under President Obama have been shackled by overbearing government regulators.  This needs to stop or small businesses will continue to relocate overseas and bring their jobs with them.  Small businesses are the economic engines that make America prosper.  They should not be held hostage by a system that does not want to see them flourish.

Finally, the Jobs Through Growth Act tackles energy production.  By yielding to the environmental fringe of his party and not green lighting the Keystone pipeline, President Obama has cost Americans thousands of jobs and many vital resources.  This legislation will open up ANWR to drilling as well as remove built-in delays to drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.  The Jobs Through Growth Act will also strip burdensome regulations on energy companies that have hampered exploration.

With almost 88.5 million Americans out of the labor force, the Obama Administration should be doing everything it can to lower that obscene number.  We are not France or Greece yet, although with President Obama’s Big Government policies, America is moving in that direction and beyond.

Nate Beeler / Columbus Dispatch (click to view more cartoons by Beeler)

Nevada Senator Dean Heller has stepped up to the plate and introduced legislation that will hopefully light a fire under his fellow colleagues to pass a budget for the American people.  The No Budget, No Pay Act, (S.1981), calls on Members of both Houses of Congress to pass a budget by the start of each fiscal year.  If Members of Congress fail in their duties, then they will lose their pay until a budget is finally signed by the President of the United States.  This noble piece of legislation will finally hold members accountable, and will no doubt force them to come up with a meaningful budget.  All readers should call their Members of Congress and demand support.

Under Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s failed leadership, the Senate has stopped doing the people’s business.  Since 2010, Democrats in the United States Senate have not brought one single budget to the floor for a vote.  Not one!  You would think that since the federal government did not have a budget, spending would decrease.  However, looking at the facts, that couldn’t be further from the truth.  Since the last budget was adopted in 2009, federal spending has totaled $10.4 trillion.  During that same period of time, the national debt has increased by $4.5 trillion – meaning a typical American family would have to pay an additional $39,000 to pay off the national debt.

The United States Senate cannot continue down this road of inaction when it comes to the federal budget.  With America’s $15 trillion-plus national debt, it is incumbent upon lawmakers to at least produce a blueprint for how to get out of this fiscal mess.  Unfortunately, in my view, the reason Senate Democrats do not want to produce a budget is purely political.  They just do not want to make the tough choices that will affect their liberal pocketbook issues.  President Obama is also culpable in this charade for not demanding a budget from Congress.

Senator Heller’s legislation is a wake-up call for his fellow colleagues.  The current system under which the United States Senate tries to produce a budget is clearly not working.  The No Budget, No Pay Act is simply a good government piece of legislation that will finally make lawmakers accountable.  America’s spending is out-of-control and our country needs a fiscally responsible budget that will put us back on a sustainable path.  The No Budget, No Pay Act is part of that solution.

Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by Allie)

What are our prospects for reducing the size of government?  Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good:

Congressman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) recently introduced the Consolidate Heavy-handed and Outdated Programs Act of 2012 (CHOP Act).  This bold piece of legislation will combine the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) into one department known as the Department of the Energy and the Environment (DOEE).  The federal government is a wasteful alphabet soup of agencies that often duplicates work, and this bill will reduce that duplicity.   Ideally, these two agencies should be dismantled, but this is undoubtedly a step in the right direction.

Congressman Blackburn’s approach will streamline two very big bureaucracies into one, hopefully, more efficient department.  The CHOP Act will consolidate 20 offices into eight, cut four offices completely, and eliminate or reduce 24 programs or initiatives.  The savings from combining the two agencies and implementing the cuts will save the American taxpayer an estimated $5.3 billion. Now, compared to our ever-growing debt, that might not seem like much, but it is a step in the right direction that must be repeated at every agency.

The Bad:

One agency that is ripe for some budget cuts and savings is the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).  Headed by Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, HHS is tasked with implementing Obamacare and all of the nefarious policies associated with it.  Most of the egregious parts of Obamacare do not go into effect until after the 2012 election.

In a New York Post Op-Ed by Benjamin Sasse and Charles Hurt, the two expose what can only be described as a crude shell game to protect President Obama’s re-election prospects with Medicare Advantage, slated to be on the chopping block next year.  Medicare Advantage is a market oriented program that services an estimated 12 million seniors.  Liberals hate the program because they view it as an affront to traditional Medicare.  With the cuts set to take place next year, affected seniors will be reminded when open enrollment starts this October 15^th.  The problem for President Obama and his campaign is that they do not want to anger 12 million senior citizens right before an election – especially in major swing states like Florida and Ohio with millions of seniors poised to hit the polls.

The Ugly:

Big Government is ready and able to take care of this little problem for the Obama campaign.  A little used 1967 law gives the HHS Secretary the authority to spend money that is not authorized by Congress for “demonstration projects” that are “experiments.”  HHS plans to spend over $8 billion to fund Medicare Advantage through the election under this law to shield President Obama from the wrath of seniors at the polls.  The Government Accounting Office issued a report this week calling on HHS to cancel this “demonstration project” and let this portion of Obamacare take effect.  Fleecing $8 billion from the American people to help his reelection is a pox on President Obama and obviously an ugly misuse of taxpayers’ money.  Congress should investigate the activity and hold hearings.

In closing, to curb our $15.6 trillion debt we need more pieces of legislation like Congressman Blackburn’s CHOP Act and less incumbent-protection rackets like President Obama’s HHS “experiments.”  Time and again Congress and the President have expanded government.  Finally, a member of Congress is trying to shrink the size of government, but is the President willing to do the same?  Unfortunately, I fear we’ll just see more of the ugly for now.

Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to view more cartoons by McKee)

Despite the outrage, Obama’s million dollar Super PAC donor Bill Maher doubled down on the attack and pushed it even further over the line, saying, “But what she meant to say, I think, was that Ann Romney has never gotten her [expletive] out of the house to work.”

Millions of women exploded at the slight against hardworking mothers and it reignited the Mommy Wars.  Make no mistake, motherhood is a job and it is the most important job in the world.  My wife is a stay at home mom to our four beautiful children and she can tell you it is a thankless 24/7 job with many sacrifices and frustrations but it is worth every moment.  This attack on Mrs. Romney is an attack on her and every other underappreciated mother.

The Democrats’ “War on Women” message is not working.  In addition to this disrespect of mothers, the Obama White House has been called a “hostile workplace to women,” where women are paid less than men.  Since President Obama took office, 92.3 percent of the people who have been laid off from their jobs have been women – 858,000 of them.

Knowing how hypocritical they look, the Democrats are now attempting to disavow their “War on Women” phrase, even claiming it wasn’t their language.  Clearly, they have forgotten DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s appearance on Meet The Press in early March that added the “War on Women” to her long line of divisive and over the top statements.  They’re trying to pretend that former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi never penned a fundraising email used by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to garner donations based on the plea that “the national media and our opponents will use our grassroots fundraising totals to measure the strength of our opposition to the Republicans’ War on Women.”  I guess we will see the disappearance of the DCCC’s sale of “Stop the Republican War on Women” car magnets and the “One Million Strong Against the Republican War on Women” online petition.  Will the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee remove their “Stop The Republican War On Women” action alert, too?

These false political theatrics and conjured up wars can’t distract from the real issues facing all Americans, whether it’s the painful price at the pump, the stubbornly high unemployment rate, or our skyrocketing debt.   America is suffering from the failed policies of President Obama and some of the loudest voices against these policies have been women.  They know that we cannot pass America’s crushing $15 trillion debt onto the next generation.

In the Citizens United Productions film, “Fire from the Heartland: The Awakening of the Conservative Woman,” Michelle Malkin explains this maternal instinct by saying, “We do not want our kids’ and our grandkids’ futures taken away from us and we’re going to stand up and do whatever we need to do to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

This is not the war the Left was hoping for, but the Mama Grizzlies have been reawakened – and they’re ready for battle.

Mike Keefe / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by Keefe)

Americans get a two-day reprieve from the Tax Man this year due to April 15^th falling on a Sunday and the following day being a Washington, D.C. holiday.  The deadline to file federal taxes is April 17^th, a day which many Americans dread and Big Government relishes.  The old saying that death and taxes are the only things certain in life rings truer every day.  We are all going to meet our Maker, but do we have to pay the government an absurd amount, too?

According to the non-partisan Tax Foundation, it will take Americans 107 days in 2012 to pay an estimated combined 29.2 percent of their salaries in federal, state, and local taxes.  Meaning, nearly thirty percent of income is taxed one way or the other, from federal Social Security and income taxes, to state gas and local property taxes.  Americans are simply overtaxed by the government at every level in their lives.

Americans are overtaxed because federal, state, and local governments like to spend money needlessly.  The latest example of government waste comes from the agency charged with making sure the federal government is accountable to the American taxpayer, the General Services Administration (GSA).  The GSA has been embroiled in scandal over the last few weeks because it spent lavishly on a Las Vegas conference.  On the GSA’s website, the agency states its mission is “…to use expertise to provide innovative solutions for our customers in support of their missions and by so doing foster an effective, sustainable, and transparent government for the American people.”  Well that “expertise” wasted $800,000 of taxpayers’ money on a frivolous Las Vegas conference.

Thankfully, the foolish wasting of taxpayer money that happened in Vegas did not stay in Vegas.  The GSA’s Administrator has been sacked and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will launch a formal inquiry on the matter.  But as egregious and wasteful the GSA episode has been, a new report about Obamacare should make the American taxpayers’ blood boil.  Charles Blahous, a trustee for Medicare and Social Security finances, says Obamacare will add at least $340 billion to the deficit and refutes President Obama’s original claim that Obamacare would reduce the deficit.

Of course, the White House pushed backed hard at the report, but their math just does not add up because it was flawed to begin with.  What this means for the American taxpayer is dire and only hurts those who are in need of tax relief.  Time and again President Obama has waged war on those paying the most in taxes.  Then he complains when those same people do not invest in America.  The Obama Administration cannot have it both ways.

The Tax Man is coming on April 17^th and he will be shaking down the American people to pay for Big Government policies. The Tax Man will only get fatter with the current policies in place.  To solve the problem of high taxes, Americans need to focus on shrinking the size of government, which means America needs a new direction.

Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to view more cartoons by McKee)

Government overstepping its boundaries was on full display last week at the United States Supreme Court where Obamacare was argued.  By most accounts, President Obama’s Solicitor General, Donald Verrilli Jr., did a terrible job arguing the government’s case defending Obamacare, particularly the individual mandate.  The individual mandate is the most egregious section of Obamacare, requiring every American citizen to buy healthcare on the presumption they will eventually need it and be in the market for it.

As Justice Antonin Scalia said during oral arguments, “Everybody has to buy food sooner or later.  Therefore, everybody is in the market; therefore you can make people buy broccoli?”  Justice Scalia’s comparison of healthcare to broccoli may seem trivial to some, but in truth he hit the government’s argument right on the head.  It is unconstitutional for the government to order its citizens to buy anything, whether it is health insurance or broccoli.

Solicitor General, Donald Verrilli’s argument fell apart and those watching this historic case knew it.  Jeffrey Toobin, a liberal commentator who writes for the New Yorker and appears on CNN, seemed shaken by Verrilli’s performance on Day 2, calling it a “train wreck” that put the law “in grave, grave danger.”  It is not totally Verrilli’s fault because it is hard to defend the indefensible.

Hearing about the three days of Obamacare oral arguments reminded me of some of the great moments from our case, Citizens United v. FEC.  The most dramatic exchange that stands out in my mind came when then-Deputy Solicitor General Malcom Stewart was forced to admit during the first round of oral arguments that the government had the power to ban books.  I was sitting in the gallery and to see the justices’ faces was priceless.  Undergrad political science students taking Con-Law know that it is unconstitutional for the government to ban books because of their First Amendment rights.

In the rearguing, then-Solicitor General and now-Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan attempted to argue that even though the government could potentially ban books, it never had, and so we must trust the government when it says it never will.  I knew we had the case won at that point because Kagan’s argument just did not hold any water.

At the end of June we will hear the Supreme Court’s decision on Obamacare.  I am very optimistic that the Supreme Court – like it did in Citizens United – will rule in favor of the Constitution, and a smaller government.  President Obama’s philosophy is that Big Government is always right and just.  It is now up to the Supreme Court to keep President Obama and Big Government in check.

Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by Allie)

The first instance was an underreported back and forth between Secretary Geithner and Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) at a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing last week. To put this telling exchange into context, one has to rewind to February 2009 when President Obama said in a major address from the White House:

“[T]oday I’m pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office. This will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult decisions and face challenges we’ve long neglected. But I refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay – and that means taking responsibility right now, in this administration, for getting our spending under control.”

Now fast-forward to last week when Congressman Gowdy asked Secretary Geithner, “If this were the last debt ceiling increase you ask for, the final one, and you had to make it large enough for all current and future obligations, what would the request be?” After some banter back and forth Secretary Geithner said, “It would be a lot,” and then added, “It would make you uncomfortable.”

To hear the Treasury Secretary of the United States disclose that it would “make” a Member of Congress “uncomfortable,” because the amount would be so high, turns my stomach. President Obama promised the American people that he would make tough decisions, take responsibility, and not leave future generations saddled with debt. As with so many other words that have come out of President Obama’s mouth, it was another empty promise never intended to be enacted. America has a $15.5 trillion debt that continues to rise and the Obama administration does not want to tell the truth about it because it might make people “uncomfortable.” I fear a course has been set for our nation that we cannot recover from and Secretary Geithner’s comments have unfortunately confirmed that.

In the second instance, President Obama, in Seoul, South Korea, had a very revealing exchange with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on an open mic this week. President Obama said, “This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.” First, President Obama seems pretty confident that, despite his catastrophic failures, he will be reelected to a second term. Second, President Obama knows full well that in his anticipated second term he will move even further to the left than he has in his first term, even in the context of missile defense. There is no doubt in my mind that President Obama will take advantage of his “flexibility” on a myriad of issues that the people oppose. This will no doubt be a boon for Big Government and a bust for your everyday American if President Obama is reelected.

What is even more troubling about the whole exchange is that President Obama is more forthright with the President of Russia than he is with the American people. Aided by a friendly media, his campaign will try to pull the wool over the eyes of Americans yet again. The American people deserve the truth when they go into the voting booth next fall, not just some $1 billion infomercial that does not mean anything.

Thankfully, this time Americans can look back at the revealing comments by President Obama and Secretary Geithner to see their true agenda – more debt, even bigger government, and no responsibility.

Nate Beeler / Washington Examiner (click to view more cartoons by Beeler)

It has been well over 1,000 days since Senate Democrats passed a budget for the American people. Why has it been almost three years, you may ask? The reason is pure partisan politics. Senate Democrats are fearful of losing their majority and do not want to take painful but necessary votes.

The American people want responsible action from those who represent them. It is time for Senate Democrats to work with their Republican colleagues and hammer out a fiscally sound budget. If they continue to delay, and kick the can down the road, the crisis will only get worse.

This week, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) released a bold budget plan that builds on his efforts from last year. Ryan’s plan calls for cutting $5.3 trillion in federal spending over the next ten years. To achieve this, his plan will make necessary reforms in Medicare, cut discretionary spending, freeze federal workforce pay through 2015, and cut the federal workforce by 10 percent. In addition, with a new farm bill coming down the pike, Ryan believes they can cut out subsidies as well as restructure the food stamps program. These hard but necessary reforms are a must to restore fiscal sanity in Washington for the future wellbeing of America.

Of course, Democrats in both Houses of Congress are repudiating Paul Ryan’s budget plan. Democrats and their friends in the liberal media are calling the Ryan budget a “gift” during this election season, using the same old tired talking points to scare seniors into thinking Republicans want to take away their benefits. That claim is just a lie: if you are over 55 years old the Ryan plan does not change your benefits at all. It does, however, restructure benefits for the younger generation to ensure the system hasn’t already collapsed by the time it is their turn to use them, which will happen if we don’t change course. Furthermore, the Medicare part of the budget plan is a bipartisan proposal backed by Democrat Senator Ron Wyden from Oregon.

Harry Reid and his fellow Democrats fear the Ryan proposal because it would break their hold on the welfare state by reducing discretionary spending and reforming food stamps, and hurt their union allies with its cuts to the federal workforce. Their Big Government ideology won’t allow them to do what is right for America. America is facing a $15.5 trillion debt and, instead of facing this crisis, Senate Democrats just want to look the other way and protect their special interests.

Time and again, American families sit around their kitchen tables and hammer out a budget that will not sink their household – it is time that Senate Democrats step up and do the same. However, judging by their gleeful take down of Congressman Ryan’s budget this week, any hope for fiscal responsibility and compromise on their part is fading fast.

Obamacare’s head cheerleader, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, looked lost at the hearing when she was asked by Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) about the waivers her office has given out.  Below is a transcript from the hearing – it is shocking how inept Secretary Sebelius is in explaining or understanding Obamacare (emphasis added):

Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by Allie)

JOHNSON: … Now, we’ve granted quite a few waivers – about 1,200 to 1,700 waivers – on about 4 million Americans, correct?

SEBELIUS: I’ve no idea what waivers you’re talking about or–

JOHNSON: Well, those are waivers–

SEBELIUS: On doctors and health plans, is that…I–

JOHNSON: Just waivers from having to implement portions of the healthcare law that probably would have allowed those – or forced those workers – off their employer-sponsored care.

SEBELIUS: Again, I’d be happy to answer these questions, but I have no idea what waivers you’re talking about–

JOHNSON: The waivers that HHS has granted to employers not–

SEBELIUS: Which do what?

JOHNSON: Not having implemented sections of the healthcare law.

SEBELIUS: There have been waivers granted to employers, yes.

JOHNSON: And had those waivers not been granted, chances are, those employees probably would have lost their employer-sponsored care, correct?

SEBELIUS: I have no idea. I mean, I’m happy to answer those one at a time and look at the waivers and see what–

JOHNSON: Unfortunately, I’m pretty short on time.

If Secretary Sebelius has “no idea” and was not prepared to answer important questions about Obamacare at a Senate hearing – how can such an unknowledgeable person be in charge of implementing Obamacare, which is one of the largest and most complicated expansions of government in history?  Senator Johnson should be lauded for exposing Secretary Sebelius’ incompetency.  Obamacare was a flawed bill right from the start and needs to be repealed, not least because the bureaucrats in charge of it have no idea what they’re doing.

Predictably, little of what President Obama said about Obamacare has turned out to be true.  The President promised that Obamacare would cut the deficit by $143 billion over ten years, but that promise has not held water.  Sen. Johnson pointed out at the hearing that “instead of saving $143 billion, we are adding $54 billion to our deficit,” which Secretary Sebelius neglected to dispute.

President Obama pledged that health care costs would go down by $2,500 for every American family.  That this is not reality was also confirmed in Secretary Sebelius’ hearing.  Senator Johnson cited a Kaiser Family Foundation study that said the average cost has already increased by $2,200 for family health care plans.

President Obama also said that Obamacare would “only” cost about $900 billion over 10 years.  This week, the Congressional Budget Office said the gross cost between 2012-2022 would be $1.762 trillion.  As America’s $15 trillion debt continues to climb, it seems Obamacare will rocket us way past $16 trillion and I suspect that will only grow in the future.

Hopefully, the U.S. Supreme Court will confirm that Obamacare is unconstitutional this term so we can dismantle this ticking time bomb.  America cannot afford a Big Government handout that will put our country on the path towards bankruptcy.  The giant behemoth that is Obamacare must be stopped now because, as we have seen with the testimony from Secretary Sebelius last week, nobody has a clue what the real impact on our country will be in the long run – not even those in charge.

Andrew Breitbart (photo by Gage Skidmore)

Andrew and I were in the midst of making “Occupy Unmasked,” an anti-Occupy Wall Street documentary with our mutual friend and colleague Stephen K. Bannon.  As part of the promotion for the documentary, Andrew, Stephen, and I hosted a bloggers briefing at CPAC to introduce other cast members of the film and give a sneak peak of the trailer.  To create some buzz for the event, Andrew, Stephen, and I concocted a plan to dress up in Guy Fawkes masks and capes.

The original plan was to just walk into the screening room and interrupt the introduction.  However, as he always did, Andrew thought outside of the box and said that he would walk around CPAC first to draw people into the briefing.  So there was Andrew, in a Guy Fawkes mask and cape, walking around the hotel while the Occupy Wall Street crowd was trying to break into the building.  He was stopped by security because they mistook him for an actual Occupier.  Thankfully, a Citizens United staffer was with him and told the security officer of the hi-jinks.

When Andrew finally made it to the screening, smiles and laughter filled the room.  It was a classic Breitbart moment and I believe he really enjoyed it.  Other people of Andrew’s stature might have scoffed at the Guy Fawkes charade as a harebrained idea, but Andrew embraced it head on and went above and beyond as he has always done.

It is a tough loss to take when a 43 years old man with a young family loses his life.  I weep for his wife Suzie and their four children.  Andrew was a doting father who cherished his time with family, yet still spent countless hours dedicated to standing up for the cause and motivating others.  The conservative movement lost one of its best this week, it is now up to all of us to continue his legacy, to stand in the breach and take the fight to the Left.  Rest in Peace, my friend.

Rick McKee / Augusta Chronicle (click to view more cartoons by McKee)

Back in 2008 Citizens United Productions produced “We Have The Power,” hosted by Newt and Callista Gingrich. We dive into a myriad of energy solutions to help inform Americans about the possibilities that we have right here at home. We need to explore the vast amount of oil and gas in the Outer Continental Shelf, Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), as well as our other vital energy resources including hydroelectric power, wind power, oil shale, natural gas, gas hydrates, hydrogen, biofuels, solar power, clean coal and nuclear power.

“We Have The Power” highlights America’s need to readopt our World War II mentality of “Do it all, do it now” by tapping into all of our abundant energy resources. However, “Do it all, do it now” does not mean handing out pork projects and subsidies to favored liberal constituencies through a $38.6 billion green jobs loan program.  “Do it all” does not include Chicago-style, pay-to-play schemes using taxpayer funds to reward campaign contributors – like George Kaiser, the largest shareholder of the now-bankrupt Solyndra.  Nor does it mean the government picking our energy winners and losers instead of the free market, where bad ideas can fail without leaving taxpayers on the hook.

“Do it all, do it now” does mean unleashing our country’s energy industry, whether by approving the Keystone pipeline, allowing drilling off the coasts of Florida, Virginia and the eastern Gulf, or giving green energy startups the flexibility come up with their own solutions and compete without being bogged down by rigid, one-size-fits-all federal loan requirements.

To lower our energy prices, we must look at ALL the energy resources available in America today and those we can develop for tomorrow.  Instead, President Obama gives us the job-killing Cap and Trade bill, tells us to check the tire pressure on our cars, and sings the praises of algae.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has said there are “no magic solutions” and Obama says there is no “silver bullet.”  The Obama Administration is making a big show of claiming that the energy situation is far too complicated to fix.  The fact is this is how an administration too cozy with the radical environmental lobby behaves.

Before he was president, Obama said under his plan energy prices would “necessarily skyrocket.”  Similarly, in 2008 Energy Secretary Steven Chu advocated for gas prices as high as in Europe.  The Obama Administration is licking its chops at the pain being inflicted on Americans at the pump because they hope it will force Americans to change their lifestyles and drive energy consumption down.  Their only regret is that this is happening during an election year.

America’s ready to stop playing games with our energy and start taking action. As Americans, we have the power. The time to act is now.

Patrick Chappatte / International Herald Tribune (click to view more Iran cartoons)

Now, gaffe-prone Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has leaked to the Washington Post that Israel will most likely launch a preemptive attack on Iran in the coming months.  I’m not a military strategist, but the Defense Secretary of the United States of America telegraphing a potential attack by our strongest ally in the Middle East seems to be either incompetent, stupid or a malicious attempt to undermine it.  In a region of the world that is hostile to Israel’s very existence, how does it make any sense to undercut our ally’s fight for survival?

Israel has to continuously protect itself from rocket and suicidal attacks from Palestinian terrorist groups.  With an unstable government in Egypt to its south, and Syria on the brink of a full blown civil war to its east, Israel is right in the middle of a hornet’s nest.  Adding the threat of a nuclear Iran that has called for the eradication of Israel only heightens the dangers they face.  It should be a top priority for the Obama Administration to do everything in its power to ensure the security of Israel and stop Iran from going nuclear.

President Obama has displayed a dangerous naiveté when it comes to the threat that Iran poses to our allies in the Middle East and to the United States itself.  If Iran joins the club of nuclear nations it will be one of the biggest American foreign policy blunders ever to occur.  We have watched this scene play out in the past with Neville Chamberlain and it led to a world war that cost 30 million lives.  If Barack Obama repeats the same mistakes today and Iran gets nuclear weapons, how many will suffer?

A nuclear Iran could very well lead to an arms race in the Middle East that would destabilize an already volatile region and harm global security.  We cannot assume the Iranian regime won’t follow through on their explicit threats against Israel and American interests and the likelihood that a nuclear device would land in the hands of an international terrorist organization would drastically increase because Iran is a state sponsor of terror.  Iran’s brutal regime, led by the ayatollahs and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is at the center of the radical Islamic world and requires America’s fullest resolve and attention.

In the fall of 2010, Citizens United Productions produced a documentary that touched on Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and the threat of radical Islam.  America at Risk, hosted by Newt and Callista Gingrich, explains the roots of terrorism and the threats we still face.  We are dealing with people for whom not even mutually assured destruction is a deterrent, as America At Risk cast member Bernard Lewis says, “it’s an inducement because that is what they’re hoping for.”

President Obama must act now and work with the Israeli government to thwart the Iranian threat.  The next few months will be critical as this growing crisis continues to escalate.  If a shooting war breaks out in the Middle East between Israel and Iran, all bets are off.  President Obama needs to strongly back the state of Israel in its current struggle and show a position of strength.  If he waivers, I fear the worst for both Israel and America’s security.

John Darkow / Columbia Daily Tribune (click to view more Darkow cartoons)

Over the last two years President Obama has been criticizing the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. FEC decision – even lecturing the Justices seated in front of him during his 2010 State of the Union Speech.  In the run up to the 2010 mid-term elections, President Obama made the Citizens United decision an issue in the campaign on a daily basis.  In his criticism, the president sought to demonize Citizens United, even calling it a “threat to our democracy.”

It is President Obama’s policies that threaten democracy, not the Citizens United decision.  The government takeover of health care, unaccountable czars, and unconstitutional recess appointments are but a few examples of Obama’s disregard for our republican system of government. President Obama and his policies are a threat to our democratic republic and the First Amendment rights reinstated via Citizens United are the antidote to his bully pulpit. With political speech freed once again, the American people thoroughly rejected President Obama’s arguments by electing a Republican controlled House of Representatives in 2010.  

Today, President Obama and his campaign are fully embracing the Citizens United decision and the Super PACs that were made possible because of the Citizens United and Speech Now cases.  It is the right of President Obama and his political operation to use the tools available to them from our decision in their re-election efforts.  But it incenses me that President Obama and the whole Democrat Party went on a rampage against the Citizens United decision in 2010 and now they are going back on their words because it will potentially help them politically.  What was once a “threat to our democracy” is suddenly as American as apple pie now that the president has found a way to raise more money.

The pro-Obama Super PAC that has been given the president’s blessing is called Priorities USA and was founded by Obama’s former deputy press secretary Bill Burton.  Last June, Citizens United produced a short web video called “Obama Hypocrisy” that highlighted an Obama speech condemning outside groups run by candidates’ former staffers during the Democratic primary race in 2007.  If President Obama cared to stick to his so-called principles, he would condemn Priorities USA rather than encourage it.  The One Billion Dollar Man’s claims that this hypocritical reversal will finally allow him to compete with Republicans on a level playing field is laughable.

Alas, now it looks like President Obama’s cabinet is up for sale to the highest bidder.  Four members of his cabinet have signaled that they will help Priorities USA raise funds.  Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk have all signed up to help.

In the wake of the Solyndra scandal, should Secretary Chu really be raising funds for a Super PAC?  Shouldn’t Secretary Salazar focus on domestic oil production so that we are not dependent on Middle Eastern oil?  Shouldn’t Secretary Duncan focus on improving America’s schools? Shouldn’t U.S. Trade Representative Kirk be focused on the great trade deficit with China?  All of these cabinet members should be beholden to the American taxpayer and not to the fundraising needs of Priorities USA.

The fundamental purpose of the Citizens United decision was to allow more speech into the political process and Super PACs help bring other voices.  I am glad that with his decision to embrace Super PACs, President Obama and I finally agree on something.  The difference is that I believe in the First Amendment and the Citizens United decision, and Obama only does when he can profit from it.

Taylor Jones / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by Jones)

In 2009, Citizens United Productions produced a documentary called Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous With Destiny, hosted by Newt and Callista Gingrich.  The film is a feature length documentary that focuses on the three pillars of the Reagan presidency: reviving the American economy, restoring America’s spirit, and challenging the oppression of the Soviet Union. Through interviews with historians, cabinet members, and world leaders, the film examines and celebrates the Great Communicator and his legacy.

Featuring exclusive interviews with former Presidents Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic and Lech Walesa of Poland, along with Reagan Cabinet and staff members including James Baker, Edwin Meese, Marlin Fitzwater, Richard Perle, William Bennett, and the late Jack Kemp, Rendezvous With Destiny is President Reagan’s story as told by the people who were with him on the front lines of the Reagan Revolution.

Citizens United Productions traveled across the United States and to historic locations in Europe to capture the sights and sounds that defined Ronald Reagan’s presidency. You’ll see exclusive interviews and footage of President Reagan’s greatest speeches, from the unforgettable “Tear Down This Wall” in Berlin, to the moving “Boys of Pointe Du Hoc” in France, to his stirring farewell address from the Oval Office. Shooting on location in four countries, Rendezvous With Destiny goes to unprecedented lengths to tell the remarkable tale of Ronald Reagan’s life.

One of my favorite quotes from President Reagan is, “I hope that someday your children and grandchildren will tell of the time that a certain president came to town at the end of a long journey and asked their parents and grandparents to join him in setting America on the course to the new millennium, and that a century of peace, prosperity, opportunity, and hope had followed.”  This quote by America’s 40^th President sheds light on his soul.  President Reagan was a conservative who understood the promise of the American people.

This week many leading conservatives will congregate in Washington, DC for the 39^th annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).  CPAC is a great testament to the conservative ideals set forth by President Reagan.  President Reagan is one of the reasons why this important conference continues today and it is appropriate that it will take place during the week of his birth.  Citizens United Productions will be sponsoring the CPAC Theater where we will be showing a number of conservative movies including Ronald Reagan: Rendezvous With Destiny.

I believe President Reagan would be proud of today’s conservative movement, especially with the number of young people who are now involved.  Without this new generation, the movement would die and it is a tribute to the legacy of one of the greatest stars of the conservative movement, President Ronald Reagan, that his ideals continue to this today.

Cam Cardow / Ottawa Citizen (click to view more cartoons by Cam)

We are a nation that is over $15 trillion in debt and the greatest deliberative body on the planet cannot produce any budget at all good or bad for the American people.  Most of the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.  Last spring Harry Reid said about the 2012 budget process, “There’s no need to have a Democratic budget in my opinion. It would be foolish for us to do a budget at this stage.”  Senator Reid is the poster child for what is wrong with Washington.  Reid’s irrational statement about the budget process last year is why he has a 23 percent approval rating – the lowest among all Congressional leaders.

The truth is Senator Reid does not want to develop a budget for the American people because he does not want Democrat members of the Senate to take tough votes that will set their core liberal constituencies’ heads on fire.  Our national debt has grown to unprecedented levels. The credit agency Standard & Poor’s downgraded America’s credit rating for the first time in history last summer.  We are truly in a crisis and tough decisions need to be made by our leaders.  However, Senate Democrats lack the courage to make those tough decisions because of failed leadership from the top.

Although Harry Reid shares most of the blame for not producing a budget, President Obama is guilty as well.  If the President wanted a workable budget from the Senate he would have called on Harry Reid to act.  The modus operandi of the Obama Administration has always been to blame somebody else for its failures. President Obama has not led on bringing our government spending under control and has in fact presided over the greatest expansion of our national debt in history.

President Obama is set to unveil his latest budget for Fiscal Year 2013 on February 13^th – a week later than originally planned.  Obama’s 2013 budget will not be a fiscally sound document, rather it will be a blueprint for his reelection campaign to again play favorites with his liberal base.  Even though Senate Democrats never introduced their own budget last year, the Senate did vote down President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2012 budget 97-0.  It goes without saying that it was a complete disaster for the Obama Administration.

As we head into this new budget season, I have no faith in President Obama and Senate Democrats adopting a truly fiscally sound budget.  It is 280 days until Election Day. Will the American people force the Senate Democrats to produce a budget?  Time will tell.

Gary McCoy / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by McCoy)

I had the pleasure of presenting, with Governor Mike Huckabee, the film The Gift Of Life this weekend at the Students for Life of America national conference.  Two thousand pro-life leaders of the next generation sat in rapt attention, moved and motivated by the documentary’s message of the precious gift of life.  On Monday, hundreds of thousands marched for life in the freezing DC rain, an overwhelming number of them young students from kindergarten to graduate school.  These youth inspire me and give me optimism for the future of the pro-life movement.

These student activists are the post-Roe generation.  They are the ones who survived a culture that told their mothers that they were just blobs of tissue, products of conception, or a choice.  They know the truth about the effects of Roe’s terrible legacy and are inspired to take action to save the next generation.

Lila Rose, the President of Live Action who is featured in The Gift Of Life, gives voice to this sentiment when she says, “At the end of the day, I count it all as a gift and a blessing to get to do this work for life because there’s not greater cause than to fight for the lives of our unborn brothers and sisters.  And I count it as a gift to get to be alive and to get to be an advocate.”

How sad that our country’s youth count themselves as lucky to be alive because they have survived Roe.  They can’t help but see the prevalence of abortion and think, “There but for the grace of God go I.”  After 54 million dead, they ask “What if?” and “Why?”  What if my mother had not chosen me?  Why did I survive while so many others did not?  These haunting questions spur them to action to defend the lives of others.

Those born after 1973 have survived the womb but have lost siblings, cousins, nieces or nephews to abortion.  There are empty seats at dinner tables, classrooms, and office desks because of the scourge of abortion.  We will never know if the world would have turned out differently if not for the untimely deaths of the millions of unborn.

Dr. Anthony Levatino, a former abortionist, is tormented by these thoughts and questions.  He asks in The Gift Of Life, “Did I kill a great musician or a future president of the United States?  I don’t know.  Out of 1,200 abortions, who knows?  Who knows what good those children would have done in the world if they were allowed to live?”

It may be too late for the 54 million lives lost over the last 39 years, but a new generation is rising to end this senseless slaughter of the innocent.  The post-Roe generation has taken the torch to promote a culture that respects and celebrates the intrinsic value of every human life – and that gives me hope for a future without Roe.

Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by Allie)

President Obama is in his own world, his ideas reinforced by leftist yes-men in his administration.  He doesn’t even realize – or care – that his ideology represents only a miniscule 20 percent minority.  By the way he talks, you’d think 80 percent of the country was liberal.  In fact, during last year’s debt ceiling debate, President Obama astoundingly claimed that 80 percent of Americans want a tax increase to help bring down our nation’s debt!  At the time, Mr. Obama wanted to raise the debt ceiling on a “clean vote” – i.e. without reforms or offsetting cuts. But he misread the mood of the country and was forced to back down.  Now President Obama is back asking Congress for another $1.2 trillion to lift the debt ceiling to a new record of $16.4 trillion, up from $10.6 trillion when he took office.

President Obama is hopelessly out of touch with the rest of America.  We saw him go against the public’s wishes when he rammed through the stimulus, bailouts, and Obamacare.  The people were outraged by President Obama’s big government power grabs and rose in the form of the Tea Parties in protest.  So unpopular was Obama’s agenda that even the liberal state of Massachusetts voted for Republican Senator Scott Brown, who ran pledging to be the 41st vote in the Senate to block Obamacare.  This was followed by an historic defeat for Obama and the Democrats in the 2010 Congressional races.  Still, the message did not sink in.

President Obama and liberals think that if only they were able to better articulate their positions, the American people would support them.  They don’t realize that it is the positions themselves that Americans reject.  The only way they can win over voters is with smoke and mirrors.  President Obama tried this successfully during the campaign, disguising his true ideology in the vague language of “hope” and “change,” but once his true policies were put into action, the American people balked and rebelled.

With 35 percent of the electorate calling itself “moderate,” it is understandable that President Obama’s promises of moderation and unity were believed.  But the warning signs were all there.  The arrogance and distaste for the average American was on display from the very beginning when he ran for President and denounced “bitter clingers.”  The writing was on the wall when Obama was rated the “Most Liberal Senator” by the National Journal in 2007.

At a time when our country yearned for hope and thought it was getting change, President Obama delivered corruption and strong-armed, Chicago-style politics.  From the Solyndra scandal to Fast and Furious, Obama’s policies have been a disaster for our country.  President Obama has had three years to show us what leftist government can do and what do we have to show for it?  Record debt, a credit downgrade, and long-term unemployment.

With the House back in GOP hands, a clear path to retake the Senate, and a weakened Obama, it is time for the government to realign with the electorate.  President Obama’s tone-deaf liberal agenda must be defeated and the country put back on a conservative course where it naturally belongs.

Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by Allie)

With the “recess” appointment of Richard Cordray as Director of the newly-formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, President Obama installed an anti-business candidate who will no doubt mold a liberal ideology into the new agency.  On the same day as the Cordray appointment, President Obama delved back into his bag of tricks and “recess” appointed three union drones to the National Labor Relations Board.  Two of those appointed were only nominated two days before the United States Senate was supposed to adjourn before the holiday recess.

The United States Senate was not in recess.  It never adjourned over the holiday recess and was instead in a pro-forma session.  Congress actually did some business in pro-forma session when it punted the payroll tax cut debate into 2012.  President Obama’s rational for appointing Mr. Cordray outside his own administration’s definition of a recess was that he has “an obligation to act on behalf of the American people.”  Hogwash!  President Obama stripped the Senate of its duty to act on behalf of the American people in examining and consenting to the president’s nominees.  The founding fathers created our republic with a system of checks and balances to prevent such abuses of power.  Time and again President Obama has run roughshod over Congress and ramming these unvetted, unaccountable picks through is a new low.

Thankfully, Louisiana Congressman Jeff Landry will soon be introducing important legislation that will rein in the imperial presidency of Barack Obama.  The Executive Appointment Reform Act will bring back the checks and balances sorely missed during Obama’s years in the White House.  This bold piece of legislation will prevent all regulations coming from the anti-business Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from becoming final until the Director has been confirmed by the United States Senate.  The Landry legislation would also bar the National Labor Relations Board from having a quorum until its members are confirmed by the United States Senate.  Finally, the Landry legislation will end payment to recess appointed individuals and put limitations on an appointee’s ability to perform voluntary or gratuitous service.

The point of the Landry legislation is to reverse the Constitutional damage President Obama has done with these unprecedented “recess” appointments.  President Obama has overstepped his executive authority and will continue to do so until he is stopped.  President Obama has thrived on power grabs, whether it is taking over the healthcare industry with Obamacare or the financial industry with Dodd-Frank.  If President Obama orchestrates these purely partisan appointments now, in an election season, imagine what he’ll do during the lame duck session at the end of the year, or a second term when he doesn’t have to worry about his own reelection.

Congressmen like Louisiana’s Jeff Landry need to stand up in the face of President Obama’s imperial presidency now, before it is too late.

Randall Enos / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more Mitt Romney cartoons)

Our victory has been subject to numerous unwarranted attacks. President Obama used the decision to attack the Supreme Court during a State of the Union address. It led liberal members of Congress to attempt to pass legislation that would have chilled the freedom of speech. Some members of Congress have gone so far as to advocate for a 28th Amendment to the Constitution that would overturn the First Amendment.

In the two years since the decision I’ve grown accustomed to Democrats demagoguing the case and the political speech that it and the Constitution protect. I have not, and will not, grow accustomed to Republicans trying to do the same. If you are a Conservative, who believes in our nation’s founding principles and documents, how could you possibly advocate abridging the Freedom of Speech?

That concept was very foreign to me until last week when a candidate for the Republican nomination decided to wage war on the First Amendment. Governor Mitt Romney, in an appearance on MSNBC, launched the following assault on the First Amendment:

“They set up these new entities, which I think is a disaster, by the way. Campaign finance law has made a mockery of our political campaign season.” He also added “we really ought to let campaigns raise the money they need and just get rid of these Super PACs.”

Super PACs are the logical outgrowth of the Citizens United decision and a subsequent decision in SpeechNow v. FEC. These cases made clear that Congress cannot silence independent political speech. Romney’s call for the silencing of Super PACs is an affront to the First Amendment. This affront is particularly self serving – if the real problem is the negative ads that his supporters are running, he could have called on them to silence themselves rather than attacking the entire system and the independent political speech that it represents. If Romney is truly incensed by independent political speech he can unilaterally disarm like John McCain did in 2008. By the way, President Obama is not willing to pursue this strategy at all. After attacking Citizens United for a year, President Obama is now allowing Super PACs to support him.

This past August, Romney appeared to defend Citizens United at a campaign appearance where he proclaimed “corporations are people my friend.” He took some flak for that statement, but the First Amendment principles that it represented are sound. Sticking to a principled Conservative position isn’t a common occurrence for Romney and not surprisingly it didn’t last long.

Perhaps he’s chosen to walk back his support of the First Amendment because of the reaction he received or because some polling has revealed it to be unpopular. If that’s the case, I have some words of warning.

Governor Romney, despite what your polls or the political winds may be telling you, this is not a winning strategy. President Obama and liberals nationwide spent nearly two years campaigning against Citizens United and the First Amendment. Their track record speaks for itself – Republicans made historic gains in 2010 by running on bedrock Conservative principles that included the notion that more speech is better for a robust Democracy than less speech.

Governor Romney, take a principled stand in favor of the First Amendment – because it’s what we Conservatives believe in.

Brian Fairrington / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by Fairrington)

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Speaker Newt Gingrich, Governor Rick Perry, and Senator Rick Santorum took time out of their busy schedules to attend the forum and speak about one of the most important moral crises we face as a nation: how we treat human life in its most nascent form.  All the candidates spoke movingly about their own personal beliefs and I believe that their support for the pro-life movement is unwavering.  I only wish that we could have had a full slate of speakers there so Iowans could hear what Congressman Ron Paul, Governor Mitt Romney, and Governor Jon Huntsman had to say about the sanctity of life.  (If you were unable to watch the forum live on CSPAN 2 on the night of the event, CSPAN has posted the full speaker portion online which you can watch HERE.)

Citizens United Productions teamed up to produce The Gift of Life with Governor Huckabee to change the way this divisive issue is approached and to open the hearts and minds of all Americans.  This film brings to the forefront the inspirational and personal stories of those affected by the scourge of abortion as well as the leaders who are on the front lines fighting for the sanctity of life each and every day.  Governor Huckabee is a tireless advocate for life and has been steadfast in his efforts to lead the pro-life cause on the main stage.

The economy and jobs are important issues that may determine this election, but the value we place on the sanctity of life is what determines who we are as a nation.  Historically, America has been a shining example of a culture that respects life, but with Roe v. Wade we exchanged our sense of responsibility toward the protection of human life for a greater heralding of the right to terminate it.  We must work to reverse this dangerous mindset.

After seeing the film, waves of people have come to us to say how inspired they are to spread the word about this enlightening film.  The Gift of Life is more than just a movie, it is a movement to restore a culture of life in this country.  Whoever the next President is, he or she will no doubt have the opportunity to appoint Justices to the Supreme Court, which could give us the chance to overturn the hideous decision that has led to the extermination of over 50 million innocent lives since 1973.  The candidates we saw speak last week in Iowa possess the steady and moral leadership that this country so desperately needs to achieve such a great victory for life.

Nate Beeler / Washington Examiner (click to view more cartoons by Beeler)

According to the latest Gallup report, underemployment currently stands at 18.1 percent, up from 17.8 percent last month. A year ago underemployment stood at 17.2 percent. Gallup states that “Many employers appear to have chosen to hire part-time rather than full-time employees for this holiday season…Gallup’s underemployment data suggest that today’s employers are increasingly relying on part-time employees who would prefer to work full time…The unemployment rate appears to have improved over the past year largely because Americans are taking part-time work when they can’t get full-time jobs.”

Sadly, out of the 35 months Obama has been on the job, the still-exorbitantly high 8.6 percent jobless rate is tied for the 3rd lowest of his presidency (Jan ‘09 – 7.8 percent; Feb ‘09 – 8.2 percent; March ‘09 – 8.6% percent). When you consider the incompetence of the Obama Administration on economic issues, this shouldn’t be surprising. This is the same administration that promised that unemployment wouldn’t go above 8 percent on its watch with the stimulus. America has been above 8 percent unemployment every month except for President Obama’s first month in office. That is not a jobs record; it is a record of ineptitude.

It’s sad because this President missed a golden opportunity to use his political capital when he took office to make critical, non-partisan structural changes to our tax rates, tax code, entitlements, and federal spending that would have been consistent with his campaign message. Instead, Mr. Obama chose the failed status quo of partisanship and special interest-rewarding politics. The hubris of President Obama has been reflected in his stale liberal policies.

A look at the month by month unemployment rates over the last few years indicate how poor a steward of the economy President Obama has been. The average unemployment rate for the term of the Obama Administration so far is over 9.3 percent. In 2009, unemployment averaged 9.275 percent, when President Obama focused on Obamacare. In 2010, unemployment averaged 9.633 percent, when President Obama focused on passing the Dodd-Frank regulations. So far in 2011, the unemployment rate has averaged roughly 9 percent, as President Obama has had a laser-like focus on nothing but keeping his own job instead of helping everyone else.

When you look at the totality of President Obama’s jobs record you see one of false hope. During the course of the next year President Obama will be in essence a part-time President, as he travels around the country giving campaign speeches and hosting high dollar fundraisers with top donors. America needs a new leader with a bold vision to improve the economy and get Americans back to work, not a demagogue who recycles failed liberal policies and then thinks 8.6 percent unemployment is a success. Let President Obama join the ranks on the employment line next year and we’ll see how much he celebrates.

Taylor Jones / Cagle Cartoons (click to view our Daily Cartoons page)

Remember how he used his powerful position to help his partner get a job with mortgage giant Fannie Mae in the early 1990s? Frank, who infamously wanted to “roll the dice” on sub-prime housing and not “focus on safety and soundness” of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, was a key defender and advocate of the poor lending practices for home mortgages that led to the housing collapse and ultimately the harsh downturn in the United States economy.

The anti-business Dodd-Frank legislation that was enacted last year by a then-Democrat controlled Congress has only hindered any possibility of a recovery for America’s struggling economy. The Heritage Foundation reported that this misguided piece of legislation calls for 243 separate rulemakings by 11 different federal agencies. Talk about a legacy of big government for Barney Frank.

As President Ronald Regan said in his first inaugural address, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” This profound statement was right then and it is right now. Government has caused the economic mess that we are currently in thanks to the failed liberal policies of Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress, like Barney Frank.

It is no coincidence that since President Obama made the monumental mistake of signing the economy-stifling Dodd-Frank regulations into law on July 21, 2010, the national debt reached $15 trillion and unemployment remains stagnant at 9 percent. Most people don’t think Obama or his policies will fix the economy. Americans are realizing once again that too much bureaucratic regulation and government tinkering is bad for job creation and our economy.

Barney Frank’s resignation is a clear sign that reality has set in within the House Democrat Caucus that regaining the majority is just a pipe dream that the DCCC likes to talk about with its top donors. For as many seats as the Republicans picked up last year, there are several more out there for the taking in Republican territory. House Democrats face a daunting task because they will be paying the political price of having Barack Obama at the top of the ticket as well as for their decision to elect San Francisco liberal Nancy Pelosi as their leader once again. There are at least 27 House Democrats and 6 Senate Democrats in tough districts and states who will have to explain their “yes” votes for Dodd-Frank in 2012. This will be another tough election cycle for the Democrats and Barney Frank saw the writing on the wall.

President Obama and Democrats in Congress offer more of the same stale policies while our country sinks deeper and deeper into an economic abyss. Unfortunately, the next person in line to take Barney Frank’s spot on the House Financial Services Committee is ultra-liberal and ethically-challenged Congresswoman Maxine Waters, another defender of sub-prime lending. In 2004, she said, “We do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Frank Raines.” This head-to-desk appointment will only make matters worse for America’s economy.

As Charlie Brown would say, “Good Grief!”

Gary McCoy / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by McCoy)

Americans are all very fortunate to live in a country that affords us the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  We all cherish these freedoms, but when it comes to the pre-born, their rights have been taken away by unelected judges in the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton Supreme Court decisions of the 1970s.

At Citizens United, our core mission is to educate the American people about the Conservative movement and to restore government to citizen control.  One way to do that is through documentary films.  Citizens United has teamed up with Governor Mike Huckabee to produce The Gift of Life, an hour long documentary that explores the sanctity of life as a moral issue and looks at the lives of individuals who have been personally affected by abortion.

In the film, you hear the voice of Rebecca Kiessling, who was conceived in rape and almost aborted twice.  James Robison tells of his mother’s decision to abort him being changed by prayer and a doctor’s conviction. Chet McDoniel shares the emotional story of how his delivery doctor put him in the corner of the hospital room where he was left to die because he had no arms and shortened legs.  The doctor told Chet’s parents that if his body was as mangled on the inside as it was on the outside, Chet would be better off dead.  By God’s grace, those featured in the film were saved from death, but an estimated 1.2 million children are aborted every year because of the unjust decisions made by the Supreme Court.  Abortion is a scourge on our American ideals.

The Gift of Life also profiles leaders in the pro-life movement.  These exceptional advocates work tirelessly everyday to protect life and to advance the pro-life cause.  One such leader we filmed was Kortney Blythe Gordon, a National Field Director for Students for Life of America, a great group that organizes college students in support of the pro-life movement.  We had the extraordinary opportunity to film a live 3D/4D ultrasound performed on Kortney who was about 20 weeks pregnant at the time.  Kortney, her husband, and her mother-in-law shared what was one of the most joyous times of their lives as we were introduced to Sophy, the living baby girl in Kortney’s womb.

Tragically, less than a week later, Kortney and her pre-born daughter Sophy were killed in an auto accident while Kortney was attending a Students for Life Conference in Georgia.  Another Students for Life staffer would later die of his injuries from the crash.  This heartbreaking tragedy rocked everyone associated with this film to the core and we were all reminded again how life is truly so precious.  Kortney’s husband Ben was very gracious to insist we keep the footage we shot of Kortney and Sophy’s 3D/4D ultrasound in the documentary. What a beautiful tribute to both mother and daughter and we are grateful to honor their lives.

Reflecting on the incredible stories featured in this film, you can’t help but be thankful for the gift of life.  Please go to The Gift of Life website to learn more about this inspirational film.  I hope this important film will give us something to be truly thankful for this Thanksgiving and maybe even change some hearts and minds along the way.

Have a Happy and Healthy Thanksgiving!

Jeff Parker / Florida Today (click to view more Veterans Day cartoons)

With President Obama’s premature retreat from Iraq at the end of the year, America and the West are committing the same mistakes they made nearly a century ago.  It seems that Mr. Obama’s national security decision was purely political.  When our forces hastily leave Iraq come December 31st, Iraq will enter the unknown.  Will Iran swoop in and essentially take over the country?  What about al Qaeda?  There is only one thriving democracy in the Middle East: Israel, and President Obama’s relationship with the leaders of that country is shaky at best.  I was hoping after all of the blood and treasure that was spilled in Iraq it would emerge as the second democracy in the region. Now President Obama has put that very much in doubt.  Hundreds of thousands of men and women in uniform served gallantly in Iraq, and we cannot let their sacrifice go in vain.  We need to honor their service everyday – not just on Veterans Day.

Unbelievably it was seven years ago that brave soldiers in Iraq waged a heroic battle to capture the insurgent city of Fallujah.  Citizens United Productions released “Perfect Valor,” a vivid war documentary hosted by Senator Fred Thompson in 2009.  The award-winning film tells the true story of the soldiers who fought in the battle of Fallujah.  When you watch the documentary you will see why America has the best military in the world. The men and women featured in “Perfect Valor” are this generation’s “Band of Brothers.”  Citizens United will never forget the heroes of the Iraq War.

As our men and women serve in Iraq and across the world, they are not the only ones sacrificing.  They leave their families at home to bear the burden and wear the worry. Many in our military ranks have served multiple tours overseas.  The stress on those families with sons, daughters, husbands, and wives serving in Iraq or Afghanistan and other parts of the world must be overwhelming, especially during the holiday season.

With Thanksgiving and Christmas rapidly approaching, Citizens United is continuing to do something near and dear to our hearts: supporting members of our Armed Forces and military families however we can.  This year, Governor Mike Huckabee is teaming up with Citizens United for what has become a tradition: our annual turkey drive for the troops, running for five years now.

On account of budget cuts and a sagging economy, times are especially tough for many of our men and women in uniform and their families.  Our focus this year is on Fort Bliss – a base that has been critical to our efforts in fighting The War on Terror.  Last year we sent 900 turkeys out to our military families and this year we are aiming for more.

You can help in this worthy and patriotic cause by calling 1-877-212-8798. Please donate today to make this holiday season special for a military family.

God Bless America and our troops!

Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by Allie)

Three years ago, Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States and the mainstream media was euphoric. In his victory speech President-elect Obama said, “Young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled, Americans have sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of red states and blue states. We have been and always will be the United States of America.” President Obama was riding high at that moment, but his words rang hollow when he took the oath of office months later.

Two years ago, after the failed stimulus did not produce any meaningful job growth and the president was fixated on ramming Obamacare through, two reformed-minded Republicans were elected governor in states that had gone for Obama in 2008. Republican Chris Christie won a significant victory in New Jersey against now possible white collar felon Jon Corzine. Governor Christie has made real union reforms in New Jersey and has brought fiscal sanity back to the Garden State. Republican Bob McDonnell won in Virginia, and took back a state many in the media thought was a solid blue after Obama’s victory. Governor McDonnell has governed Virginia well and is on many of the leading Republican presidential candidates’ short list for Vice President.

One year ago, President Obama told the media he was “humbled” by the drubbing the Democrat Party took in the Congressional mid-term elections. Republicans re-took the House of Representatives in an historic victory and narrowed their minority in the Senate. President Obama could no longer govern at will anymore because Republicans could keep him in check. After the failed stimulus, Obamacare, and multiple bailouts, the American people soundly rejected the first two years of the strong-armed Obama presidency.

Today, the most shocking aspect of Obama’s presidency is Mr. Obama’s failure to even attempt to deliver on his central campaign promise of “change you can believe in.” Perhaps more outrageous is the mainstream media’s refusal to acknowledge this big elephant in the room. Why has Obama The President been the polar opposite of Obama The Candidate? What happened to Barack Obama in those 75 days between November 4, 2008 and January 20, 2009? This is a question to which the American people deserve an honest answer. Over the course of the next 365 days this debate will play out and a verdict will be rendered.

Obama The Candidate was hopeful, optimistic, and inclusive. Obama The President is dismissive, angry, and divisive. President Obama has spent his time in office lowering expectations while pushing rehashed – and failed – big government policies via rigid partisanship. At a time when our country yearned for healing and thought it was getting moderation, Mr. Obama delivered exclusion and bare knuckle liberal machine politics that would have made LBJ proud. Conservatives knew Obama’s entire promise of change and bipartisanship was never genuine to begin with. There is now such a large body of evidence to support this notion that even the most hardcore Obama supporters in the media would have to agree. The tired partisanship and stale “Great Society” ideas were there from minute one and never relented.

During the campaign of 2008, it was a dangerous bargain for Mr. Obama to allow the mainstream media to make him into the utopian leader he couldn’t possibly have lived up to, but his ego got the best of him and he facilitated the tall tale. It was the height of irresponsibility but now here we are – America is on the brink, with a fraud at the helm. As we look back with 20-20 hindsight, we know Mr. Obama was not actually saying anything substantively different policy-wise than liberals from elections past. Think about it for a minute without the noise from mainstream media in the background. Why did so many expect a different result? President Obama’s average approval rating from various polls is currently at 44 percent.
Imagine how low it would be if the media allowed an honest discussion to take place.

One year from now, Americans will head back to the polls with the chance to begin to reverse the damage of the last several years. Under Obama’s failed leadership, America has seen our debt climb to nearly $15 trillion and unemployment remains at a stagnant 9 percent. The country is divided, thanks to President Obama playing class warfare, and 76 percent of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. Obama played on the hopes and dreams of many Americans three years ago. Next year the eventual Republican nominee must make the case that President Obama’s “hope” and “change” was a complete fraud. This time the American people will judge him based on a subpar record that even the mainstream media can’t whitewash.

Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by Allie)

It is no surprise that, with Halloween right around the corner, President Obama made a pilgrimage to Hollywood last week where people play dress-up every day.  While Americans suffer, President Obama palled around with Hollywood celebrities to raise money for his $1 billion campaign. From his attendance at a star-studded fundraiser in Hollywood, to his fourth appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, it is spooky to see just how tone deaf and out-of-touch President Obama really is. I guess “change you can believe in” really means “show me the money” in the land of make believe.

One of President Obama’s most intriguing meetings in Hollywood occurred at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.  It was billed by the Hollywood Reporter as a “Secret Meet-and-Greet” of well-connected Hollywood types and the President.  According to the Hollywood Reporter, a source in the room said the President needed their help to “engage” the Hollywood community.  One can surmise from this meeting that President Obama is spooked that people see right through his rock star costume to the one hit wonder he truly is.

It is a fright when the President of the United States has to rely on Hollywood to help with his public persona. Americans want real solutions to our country’s problems, but they see their President worried about one thing…his reelection chances next year.  In the end, the American electorate often rejects people they perceive to be masking their true intentions.

It is not just Hollywood that President Obama is relying on to provide him with treats to fund his $1 billion campaign.  A New York Times article (of all publications) sheds light on how President Obama is raising millions of dollars from lobbyists: “at least” fifteen of President Obama’s top bundlers are part of the “ghoulish” lobbying world.  There is nothing wrong with a lobbyist giving money to a presidential campaign; it is their right and I believe the more citizens involved in the process, the better for democracy.  However, President Obama has constantly said that his campaign will not take one dime from a lobbyist, making lobbyists out to be the boogeyman.

As with other policies that have come out of the Obama Administration, the president’s “good government” rules are nothing more than smoke and mirrors.  The faux lobbying ban, self-imposed by President Obama, decrees that the Obama campaign will not take any money from a lobbyist who is registered with the United States Senate, a laughably narrow interpretation of whom and what a lobbyist is.  President Obama yet again believes he can wear one mask in public and another behind closed doors, but Americans are finally catching on to his tricks.

In the coming months, President Obama will be in disguise every chance he gets because he cannot stand to allow the public to see his true self.  Over the past four years President Obama has dressed-up as a moderate to get elected, a doctor to impose Obamacare, a car salesman to bailout the auto industry, and a change agent who hasn’t changed a thing. Halloween only comes once a year, but for President Obama it is every day, as he tries to mask his disastrous term in office.

Jim Day / PoliticalCartoons.com (click to view our Cartoon Blog)

That is why President Obama is flying into Nevada today, trying to stem the bleeding of his campaign where he has a 44 percent approval rating.  President Obama has been tone deaf to the needs of Nevadans because he has focused on issues that do not fix the housing market and do not lower the unemployment rate.  What President Obama says today will just be lip service to a state that he needs desperately to get reelected.

You would think Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid – who happens to be from Nevada – would understand the calamity that is the Obama Recession.  However, while I was in his home state, Harry Reid said back in Washington, “It’s very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine; it’s the public-sector jobs where we’ve lost huge numbers, and that’s what this legislation is all about.”  What!? Harry Reid’s analysis of America’s unemployment crisis is just plain wrong and out-of-touch.   Since the beginning of the recession, there have been over 6 million private sector jobs lost in America – a 5.4 percent decline.  Public sector jobs – including federal, state, and local – have lost 392,000 jobs – a 1.8 percent decline.

The facts speak louder than the ignorant words that always seem to come out of Harry Reid’s mouth.  Reid made his latest gaffe while defending S.1723, a teachers/first-responders bill that failed last week in the Senate with bi-partisan opposition.  The legislation would have spent $35 billion to “save or create” 400,000 jobs for teachers, police, and firefighters.  Legislation like this is purely political, and Democrats are trying to push this type of legislation so they can placate their union friends.  We have seen this type of legislation before with Obama’s first stimulus plan – it did not work and only led us down a path of more debt and unemployment.

Not surprisingly, with the Obama Recession continuing to chug along, America’s misery index rose to 13 points – a 28-year high – in the month of September.  The misery index is calculated by adding the unemployment rate and the rate of inflation together.  Americans are both out of work and paying more for goods like milk and other staples.  As a leader, you would think President Obama would be huddled with both Republicans and Democrats to figure a way out of this economic mess.  But what does President Obama do?  He goes on a campaign-style taxpayer-funded bus tour of North Carolina and Virginia to complain that Congress (half of which is controlled by his own party) is rejecting his ill-conceived policies.  That is neither the leadership nor the “change you can believe” that President Obama promised back in 2008.

Harry Reid and the Democrats in Congress have been enablers of the failures of the Obama Administration.  America will always be a great country, but I fear that President Obama has put us on a path to decline that will not reverse itself easily.  I worry that America’s best days might be behind her, unless America finds new leadership in 2012.  America can be great again; we just need a new President at the helm, and last week Nevadans got a glimpse of what this future leadership will look like.

Gary McCoy / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more Occupy Wall Street cartoons)

Not knowing why they are there or what they stand for seems to be one hallmark of the Occupy Wall Street’s adherents.  Another common theme is disrupting the daily lives of average Americans with their childish antics, whether it’s blocking the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, storming the Smithsonian in DC, or trying to occupy bathrooms in Senate Office Buildings.  For their efforts, over a thousand Occupiers have been arrested across the country.

But these silly tactics are nothing compared to what certain Occupiers have called for.  One video shows a speaker at Occupy L.A. calling for French-style, “bloody” revolution while explicitly rejecting the Gandhi -model of non-violent protest.  Emails have been sent to New York officials with messages saying it’s “time to kill the wealthy.”  TV hosts have said they need a “Kent State moment.”  Communist and Nazi groups have joined in support of the protests.

President Obama is walking a dangerous tightrope by aligning himself to these protests.  He is trying to have it both ways by taking money from Wall Street while also embracing the Occupy Wall Street crowd for his own political gain.

At first, the media were excited to report about Occupy Wall Street, but now the realization has set in that this is no liberal Tea Party.  In fact, much to liberals’ chagrin, the protests are everything they accuse the Tea Party of being.

Remember how the Tea Party was accused of shouting racial slurs?  Andrew Breitbart offered $100,000 to anyone offering visual evidence.  No one came forward.  But there’s video and reports of anti-Semitism and slurs at Occupy Wall Street.

Remember that Tea Partiers were accused of spitting on a Congressman?   Now the news is reporting a Coast Guard member in uniform was spit on in Boston.  The Coast Guard is warning all its members not to go near the Occupy protests in uniform.

Remember when the Tea Party was called AstroTurf?  The Occupy Wall Street movement was conceived at the Obama campaign headquarters to stoke class warfare and gin up the youth and liberal vote.  Now it has been beefed up by radical left-wing AstroTurf groups like Code Pink, Moveon.org and Big Labor, with paid protesters.  The Occupy Wall Street movement is filled with a bunch of trust-fund babies, college students skipping class, ex-hippies, and anarchists who are taking their cues from the likes of George Soros, Michael Moore, and other billionaires and millionaires who want to kill capitalism. Apparently the irony of rich celebrities, who made their money because of capitalism and are in the 1% of Americans the protesters decry, joining Occupy Wall Street is lost on all who participate.

Remember how the Tea Parties were careful to clean up after their rallies?  Meanwhile Occupy Wall Street is battling police and city officials trying to clean the park in New York they have occupied for weeks.  The Occupiers have been living in filth and squalor and the park has become a sanitation hazard.  A picture is worth a thousand words and the disgusting image of a protester defecating on a police car has come to symbolize the “movement.”

To call “Occupy Wall Street” a left-wing tea party is an oxymoron.  The Tea Party is a grassroots movement that was founded in local communities by average Americans around the country who were sick and tired of the destructive policies of Congress and the Obama Administration.  Instead of declaring war on the rich and battling the police, they take the fight to the ballot box to bring real changes.  Instead of feeling entitled and expecting handouts, they work to get the government off our backs and out of our lives.  Instead of trying to tear down capitalism, they want to spread more economic freedom.  Instead of demanding more taxes, they say we are “Taxed Enough Already.”

Although Occupy Wall Street might not know exactly who they are or what they’re doing, there should be no confusion about the fact that they are not the liberal Tea Party.

Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more cartoons by Allie)

Mr. Obama won the Electoral College by a 365 – 173 margin in 2008.  Using the 2012 map, if Mr. Obama carried the exact same states, the Electoral College would stand at 359 – 179 because of redistricting.  The Republican candidate-to-be has already picked up ground without making one general election campaign stop.

Now remember the country’s mood in 2008, when candidate Obama managed to carry several states that usually end up in the Republican column on the empty messages of “hope” and “change.”  The states of Florida, Indiana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia all voted for Mr. Obama.  These six states were all carried by President George W. Bush twice, except for New Hampshire in 2004 (Democrat nominee John Kerry resided in neighboring Massachusetts).  In 2012, these six states will award a total of 90 electoral votes.  Any reasonable observer would agree that the current political mood in the country suggests these states are all poised to swing back to their natural place – in Republican hands.  President Obama’s job approval rating in these six states is alarming at best.  These most critical states all lean conservative – they only took a chance on Obama because he campaigned as a moderate with no record to disprove (or prove) his claim.  Now these voters know better and recent polling on the President’s job approval backs that up:

Florida:  39 approve – 57 disapprove
Indiana:  42 approve – 50 disapprove
New Hampshire:  31 approve – 59 disapprove
North Carolina:  43 approve – 53 disapprove
Ohio:  42 approve – 53 disapprove
Virginia:  40 approve – 54 disapprove

There is a path to the presidency through what we’ll call the “six states plus one-fifth of Nebraska” strategy.  If Nebraska’s one electoral vote from its 2nd district goes back into the “R” column with the state’s other four votes (Bush 43 carried Nebraska’s 2nd district 60 – 39 in 2004 and President Obama carried it by a razor slim margin of 50 – 49 in 2008), Republicans would win back the White House with 270 electoral votes to 268.  That’s all it would take.  If lightning were to strike and somehow the President retains one electoral vote in Nebraska (assuming the state legislature does not move to a winner-take-all system), the Electoral College would deadlock at 269 – 269.  These are just a few potential outcomes to consider, but polling suggests that it could be much worse for Obama and the Democrats.

Consider Pennsylvania, a state Republicans haven’t carried since 1988.  President Obama’s rating in the Keystone State is 43 percent approval to 54 percent disapproval.  In Colorado, the state where Barack Obama filled a football stadium for his nomination speech, his job approval is 46 – 50.  Harry Reid’s Nevada?  Obama’s approval dials in at 44 – 48.  Without these 35 electoral votes, the Republican wins 305 – 233.  The idea of the challenger capturing these three states in the midst of these horrible economic times is hardly unimaginable.

Now, let’s pivot to the shocking polls measuring Obama’s job approval that have come out recently in some of the bluest of blue states:

Connecticut: 48 approve – 48 disapprove
Maryland:  49 approve – 47 disapprove
New Jersey:  44 approve – 47 disapprove
New York:  45 approve – 49 disapprove

These polls are evidence that there is widespread discontent with the policies and leadership coming out of this White House from every corner of America.  Juxtapose these numbers with those of 2008, when President Obama carried Connecticut by a margin of 61 – 38; Maryland, 62 – 36; New Jersey, 57 – 42; and New York, 63 – 36.  At the end of the day, President Obama will probably carry all four states in 2012, but if he has to spend one dime defending this deep blue turf, he can’t spend as much in swing states like Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania.

Numbers like these make a candidate and a campaign do a lot of praying.  Praying they can rely on their money advantage; praying they can portray their opponent as out of the mainstream; praying the liberal media will do its thing; praying there is nice weather on Election Day to promote a big turnout.  Reality, however, does eventually sink in.  America will likely have a 45th president heading into 2013 and thus an economic recovery.

In 2008, Mr. Obama promised to be a moderate, but he’s unabashedly liberal.  He said he was post-partisan, but he’s hyper-partisan.  He said his economic package would work, but we’ve lost over two million jobs instead.  He said he’d focus on jobs, but he wasted a year ramming through Obamacare.  And now he’s fresh out of excuses.

All these facts and polling statistics add up to one conclusion:  President Obama is unelectable.

Nate Beeler / Washington Examiner (click to view more cartoons by Beeler)

We live in an age where America’s national debt has gotten so out of control that former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen has said the national debt is America’s number one national security problem.  Think about that.  The leader of America’s armed forces believes that our debt is more of a security risk than the threat of terrorism.  Washington must get its spending under control or we will begin to look more like Greece than America.

Unfortunately, with President Obama’s failed “Green Jobs” program, the status quo continues.  For good reason, the American people have no confidence in this administration’s handling of taxpayer funds.  What’s worse is that in the face of the Solyndra debacle, the Obama Administration signed off on billions of dollars more in green energy loan guarantees last week.  The arrogance and irresponsibility of this administration never ceases to amaze me.  President Obama should be halting these bad ideas, but instead he lets his Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, run amok with the taxpayers’ checkbook.

Incredulously, the President has said through his spokesman that he has “full confidence” in the Energy Secretary, which sends a signal to the rest of the federal government that grossly wasting federal dollars is not a fireable offense.  Is this the message the President should be sending?  We are a country that cannot afford this cavalier spending, and Secretary Chu should be held accountable and forced to resign.

Thankfully, some in Congress are heeding the call for fiscal reform and introducing legislation that will actually cut rather than spend taxpayers’ money.  New legislation introduced by Tennessee Congressman Marsha Blackburn will cap spending levels for Fiscal Years 2013 and 2014 at Fiscal Year 2012 spending levels.  Under the Budget Control Act that was passed this past summer, spending automatically increases by $4 billion next fiscal year and $23 billion the fiscal year after that.  The Blackburn legislation is a commonsense solution to stop these blind spending increases, and will save the American taxpayer $27 billion.

The House of Representatives has taken some significant steps this year to curb government spending.  However, those steps have not translated into real action thanks to Harry Reid’s control over the United States Senate, and President Obama’s insistence on trying the same old liberal policies that got us into this fiscal mess in the first place.  The Blackburn legislation does not tackle the major cuts on entitlement spending that are necessary to get America’s fiscal house in order.  It does however set down a marker to see if members of Congress are serious about taking the necessary steps to put America back on the road towards prosperity and fiscal responsibility.

Future generations of Americans will suffer the consequences of the inaction of this generation when it comes to the national debt.  Our government has a small window of time to act, but I do not have a high level of confidence since President Obama and Democrats in Congress are more worried about reelection than solving problems.

President Obama had his own “malaise” moment when he said last week America has turned “soft.” I beg to differ, but it is the modus operandi of President Obama to blame everybody else for his mistakes.  Now he is blaming the American people for his failed liberal policies that have bankrupt America.  It’s Jimmy Carter and 1979 all over again.

Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more Solyndra cartoons)

In 2009, President Obama rushed the stimulus bill through Congress without even allowing the time for debate or the appropriate safeguards to be built.  The original Obama stimulus plan was nothing but a lesson in how to waste almost a trillion dollars in taxpayer funds.  President Obama’s liberal ideology tells him he’s smarter than the free market system, the system that’s made America the greatest economic superpower the world has ever known.  Allowing the federal government to decide where taxpayer money is sent to “stimulate” certain sectors of the economy simply creates new opportunities for waste and abuse, like we’ve seen in the case of the recently bankrupt solar power company Solyndra.

Solyndra was one of the first “green” companies to be awarded a $527 million taxpayer-guaranteed loan via President Obama’s last “stimulus” plan. The California based company was supposed to be the success model for President Obama’s clean energy jobs program, but instead its failure left 1,100 people unemployed and taxpayers on the hook for a half billion dollars.

What’s worse is that one of the President’s major campaign contributors – George Kaiser – was Solyndra’s biggest shareholder.  The loan to Solyndra was specially structured to benefit investors like Kaiser in the event of bankruptcy, at the expense of the taxpayers.  Records indicate that Mr. Kaiser and other Solyndra officials frequented the White House to meet with senior Obama officials, such as former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and top staffer Valerie Jarrett.

Kaiser even greased the wheels to gain favor with the Obama Administration by donating $10,000 to the Urban Health Initiative, a program Michelle Obama helped to create at the University of Chicago Medical Center, in the same year Solyndra sought and received the loan.  Conveniently enough, Valerie Jarrett, President Obama’s top political advisor David Axelrod, and Obama’s very good friend Eric Whitaker also worked with the Urban Heath Initiative.

Using taxpayer funds to reward contributors is an outrage and it’s becoming more and more evident that this is a Chicago-style pay-to-play operation that reaches to the highest levels of the White House.  The American people deserve answers from the Obama Administration.  What did President Obama and his cronies know and when did they know it?

Over the weekend, the L.A. Times reported that at an October 2010 White House meeting Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and National Economic Council advisor Lawrence Summers warned that the vetting process for the loans wasn’t rigorous enough.  Their concerns were well founded as the Solyndra loan had already been rushed through approval for a political photo op – just in time for Vice President Joe Biden to announce the government’s support of the program at the ground breaking ceremony of a new Solyndra plant in 2009.  Rushing taxpayer funded loans out the door in an attempt to prove your economic plan isn’t a failure is irresponsible and incompetent.

Solyndra is a scandal that will be with the Obama White House throughout the 2012 election cycle, because it demonstrates why his $787 billion stimulus was a total waste of taxpayer money.  The American people deserve to know the facts of this case.  On Friday the House Energy Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing on Solyndra but the CEO and CFO of the company stonewalled by invoking the Fifth Amendment 20 times.  What are they refusing to tell Congress about that could be so incriminating?

The half a billion dollar loan to Solyndra is just a fraction of the whole stimulus-funded $38.6 billion green jobs loan program, which was bad policy from the start.  Some “clean” energy companies even turned down loans after applying because the terms were too inflexible for the startups to make the necessary changes and improvements to keep their products competitive in a new and fast-changing market.  This one-size-fits-all approach is typical of government programs and shows why the government should not be picking winners and losers.  These decisions should be left to the free market, where bad business models can fail on their own, without taxpayers left holding the bag.

With massive failures like these, American cannot afford another “stimulus.”  This time we have to tell our representatives, “Pass on this bill!”

Dave Granlund / PoliticalCartoons.com (click to view our Cartoon Blog)

Actions have consequences and the Obama Administration’s hostility towards Israel has led directly to this unprecedented request by Palestinian leaders.  Maen Areikat, the Palestinians’ top envoy to the United States, said the Obama “administration itself did not implicitly or explicitly, directly or indirectly; threaten to take any punitive actions” when it came to advancing Palestinian statehood.  This, along with a 2010 speech Obama gave to the General Assembly, has been interpreted by the Palestinians as implicit permission to continue with their bid for statehood.

President Obama has promised to use the United States’ power as a permanent member of the United Nation’s Security Council to veto Palestinian statehood, but the situation should never have escalated this high in the first place.  The impotence of the Obama Administration’s diplomatic power was on full display when it failed in negotiations to persuade the Palestians to drop their bid.

The Obama Administration is powerless but thankfully, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has proposed a bill to pull all U.N. funding if the member nations vote in favor of Palestinian statehood outside of a negotiated settlement with Israel.  Getting tough with the anti-Israel U.N. is long overdue.

The U.N. is set to advance another anti-Israel initiative this week with “Durban III,” the U.N. General Assembly’s third “anti-racism” conference.  This first took place in Durban, South Africa, just days before September 11th 2001, where the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA) was adopted.  The DDPA singled out only one state with charges of racism: Israel, for the “occupation” of “Palestine.”  Unfortunately, leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad use the DDPA as a propaganda piece when denouncing Israel.  This ridiculous document shows how much the U.N. is broken and it is a further stain on the assembly that it is set to reaffirm the DDPA on its 10th anniversary.

There will be a counter-conference to “Durban III” put on by the Hudson Institute and Touro College, called The Perils of Global Intolerance: The United Nations and Durban III.  The conference will feature a number of speakers, including former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, Former Arkansas Governor and 2008 Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel, Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, and others, talking about the U.N.’s exceptional mistreatment of Israel. The conference will take place on Sept. 22, 2011 in New York City’s Millennium UN Plaza Hotel from 9am to 6pm. For more information please go to www.durbanwatch.com.

Israel is America’s greatest ally in the Middle East.  Unfortunately, President Obama and members of his administration do not seem to value our strategic partnership and Israel’s unique position of being threatened with annihilation by its enemies. Americans understand the need to defend Israel, this was borne out last week when a Republican won a House seat in a deep blue Congressional district in New York City.  Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch – a lifelong Democrat – endorsed the Republican because he said he wanted to send a message to President Obama about his policies towards Israel.  When Democrats like Ed Koch choose the Republican candidate because of your stance on Israel, you have a serious problem.

It is time for the Obama Administration to finally wake up and see that its harmful stances towards Israel only hurt the Jewish state and embolden its enemies.  The Israeli people are under attack from threats near and far and it is up to the United States to stand shoulder to shoulder with them to thwart the anti-Semitic assault of some member states at the U.N.  President Obama must stop holding Israel at arm’s length, not only for his own cynical electoral self-preservation but, because it is the right thing to do.

Randy Bish / Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (click to view more Obama Jobs cartoons)

It didn’t happen last night because the President’s number one concern is getting re-elected. Mr. Obama supplied further evidence for this charge by sending out a campaign email to supporters just prior to the speech that stated, “If you’re with me, let me know. And the campaign will make sure you are looped into our efforts to support this plan.”

How exactly does the billions in new taxpayer-funded government spending President Obama proposed last week mesh with the Super Committee’s mission to find $1.2 trillion in budget cuts over the next 10 years? Citizens United is closely monitoring the Super Committee proceedings and is poised to send 15,000 signed petitions to Democrat members Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Chris Van Hollen urging them to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. Americans are struggling and one of the ways to help our economy is to guarantee our citizens and businesses that their taxes aren’t going up. It’s common sense that economic uncertainty discourages investment and growth.

Unfortunately, President Obama once again called for tax increases to pay for his latest spending binge. Mr. Obama himself has said in the past that raising taxes in the midst of the awful Obama Recession would be counter-productive. What has changed? If anything, the economic climate is deteriorating. Not to mention, neither the Debt Super Committee nor the U.S. House of Representative will agree to tax increases of any kind. So why did the President bother to put it in the speech? Perhaps Mr. Obama’s big labor bosses Richard Trumka and Jim Hoffa should be queried on this point. It was telling to see Mr. Trumka in the audience making sure the President didn’t say anything against his wishes. President Obama, our most liberal president ever, could not muster the political courage to offer any innovative or new ideas that might insult his special interest groups.

The President’s latest “jobs” plan once again calls for extending unemployment benefits and sending more handouts to big labor for infrastructure projects and failing public teachers’ unions. President Obama, the liberal’s liberal, just can’t wrap his head around the notion that extending unemployment benefits ad infinitum fosters a culture of government dependency that makes people less likely to ever look for a job. Furthermore, allowing the federal government to decide where taxpayer money is sent to “stimulate” certain sectors of the economy creates situations like in the case of the recently bankrupt solar power company Solyndra.

Solyndra was given a $535 million taxpayer-funded loan via Mr. Obama’s last “stimulus” plan. The California based company was supposed to be a shining success story for President Obama’s clean energy jobs program, but instead it left over 1,000 people without jobs and taxpayers on the hook for a half billion dollar failure. What’s worse is that one of the President’s big campaign contributors, George Kaiser, was Solyndra’s biggest shareholder. Records indicate that Mr. Kaiser and other Solyndra officials frequented the executive mansion to meet with senior Obama officials such as Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett. Congress and the FBI are investigating who knew what and when, but it’s abundantly clear that the blame for this debacle leads straight to the White House. This shameful episode highlights the obvious: President Obama and his administration equal business as usual in Washington and trillions worth of government “stimulus” plans don’t create jobs. Thanks to President Obama, nine percent unemployment is here to stay.

Joe Heller / Green Bay Press-Gazette (click to view our Cartoon Blog)

During that morning I learned that Barbara Olson, a very dear friend of mine, had perished on American Airlines Flight 77 – the flight that hit the Pentagon. Barbara and I worked on the Clinton investigations together in the 1990s for the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. She was a tough litigator and a conservative stalwart. In the final minutes of her life, Barbara relayed vital information from the plane to her husband, Ted Olson, President Bush’s Solicitor General at the time. Barbara had such a kind heart and her loss still has a profound effect on me today.

Watching the news throughout the day, I had hoped that there would be many more survivors found at the Pentagon, World Trade Center and Shanksville, Pa., but in the end those hopes were dashed as nearly 3,000 people perished at the hands of Al Qaeda. As a firefighter in Montgomery County, Maryland, I will never forget the selfless sacrifices made by the 343 members of the FDNY and the other first responders who perished so others could live on September 11th. Those brave men and women ran into the burning towers to save their fellow citizens from certain death, showing the world what the word “hero” truly means.

As it became clear that we had a deadly and determined enemy to face, I hoped that we as a nation would find the fortitude and perseverance that I knew this fight would require. I suspected that the focused anger we felt in the days and weeks following the horrific attacks would eventually fade away for some, but we cannot let time diminish the significance of this attack and how, in the span of a few seconds, the world forever changed.

On September 11th America was attacked by an enemy that had already been at war with us for decades, but our political leaders refused to acknowledge that radical Islamists wanted to destroy America and will not stop until they have won. The War on Terrorism is not just a slogan, it is a reality of the world in which we live. Citizens United Productions’ documentary America at Risk details the ongoing threat to our security and livelihood and explains what must be done to win this war. The film investigates the roots of radical Islam’s hatred of the West. This extremist thinking is pure evil and paved the way for the attacks on September 11, 2001.

Even with the successful operation by the Navy SEALs to kill Osama bin Laden, America is still at risk of another terrorist attack on our homeland. America must remain vigilant, and we cannot pull back the reins on our military and intelligence services now. If we do not maintain our resolve, the sacrifices made over the last ten years will have been in vain.

It should be the mission of every American to ensure that September 11th does not become just another day on the calendar. We must never forget the sacrifices made on that day nor the sacrifices made by our military in the months and years following to keep us safe. Unfortunately, America’s school systems do not teach our children what happened that day. September 11th was a great tragedy for our nation, but it will be an even greater tragedy if the next generation does not understand why America was attacked by radical Islam.

On September 11th the terrorists tried to make America cower in the face of evil, but they failed because the American spirit is much greater than the terrorists ever thought it could be. Like previous foes, in previous wars, the terrorists made the mistake of waking up a sleeping giant. Never forget September 11, 2001, and may God continue to bless the United States of America.

Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more Allie cartoons)

Roadblocks to innovation have been thrown up through unnecessary red tape and regulation by the government.  Back in January, President Obama appeared to realize this when he authored an Op-Ed for the Wall Street Journal saying, “…rules have gotten out of balance, placing unreasonable burdens on business – burdens that have stifled innovation and have had a chilling effect on growth and jobs.”  However, as with many other instances in his failed presidency, President Obama’s actions have not matched his words.

Last week the Obama Administration announced a tepid plan to cut some regulations at a savings of $10 billion over five years.  In response, Speaker of the House John Boehner sent a letter to President Obama – who was wrapping up his Martha’s Vineyard vacation – which pointed out how weak the cuts are.  The letter stated, “This year the Administration’s current regulatory agenda identifies 219 planned new regulations that have estimated annual costs in excess of $100 million each.  That’s almost a 15 percent increase over last year, and appears to contradict public suggestions by the Administration this week that the regulatory burden on American job creators is scaled back.”

Another problem with Obama’s plan to save $10 billion over a 5 year period: in July The Heritage Foundation pegged 75 new regulations costing $38 billion annually since the Obama Administration took the reins of power in January 2009.  This gap is even more eye opening when you add the new Obama regulations on top of the ones that have already been on the books.  According to a Small Business Administration (SBA) report released last year, federal regulations cost businesses a jobs-busting $1.75 trillion a year even before President Obama stepped into the Oval Office.  Federal regulation has run amok for years, suffocating small businesses and job growth with red tape.

With a 9.1 percent unemployment rate, serious regulatory reform needs to happen.  Small businesses are America’s economic engines but with needless regulations and bureaucratic hoops to jump through business growth comes to a screeching halt.  I wonder how many jobs would have been saved if regulatory burdens were cut by even a trillion dollars?

What President Obama proposed last week does not solve the problem and is simply the same old smoke and mirrors and sleight of hand he perpetrated upon the American people during the Obamacare and debt ceiling debates.  President Obama continues to propose and create new regulations that will crush businesses and job growth.  In fact, when you look at what is coming down the pike, even more regulations will be implemented thanks to Obamacare and CAFE fuel mandates, among other job stifling regulations.

The economy grew at a snail’s pace in the second quarter and the increase in Gross Domestic Product was revised down from 1.3 percent to 1 percent.  With the economy so fragile, the last thing we need is more government interference.  Big Government has always been detrimental to the American dream but President Obama has taken Big Government to a whole new level at the worst possible time.  The American people must stand up to this excessive and burdensome government regulation and reclaim the spirit of free enterprise passed down to us from our Founding Fathers.  2012 cannot come soon enough.

Nate Beeler / Washington Examiner (click to view more Gadhafi cartoons)

The situation in Libya is still evolving, with battles being waged around Muammar Qadhafi’s compound in Tripoli.  Qadhafi still has a small but loyal following that can make trouble for any transitional government that forms after Qadhafi is finally deposed in the coming days.  President Obama should not be sucked into a “mission accomplished” type of speech once Qadhafi’s tyrannical regime falls.  Unlike in Egypt, Libya is a tribal based society that can dissolve very quickly into anarchy without a strong central government in place.  Pre-surge Iraq is a prime example of what can happen when tribal warfare takes hold in the Middle East.

President Obama, sitting in Martha’s Vineyard, should be very worried about what will become of Libya.  The next week to ten days will shape the fate of Libya.  Libya could be a state where terrorist organizations rush in to fill a power vacuum.  As we approach the tenth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on our homeland, America should not sit idly by while the next terrorist state is born.

Leading from behind in this next phase will put America’s national security at risk. The transitional government that is being formed must give a voice to the Libyan people.  Without any American guidance or wherewithal, the people of Libya will be left hanging out on a limb just like what America did to the Afghanis when the Soviet Union withdrew.  Libya is on the cusp of kicking out a dictator who has ruled for over forty years and caused harm to America.  America must lead from the front in the building of democrat institutions in a land where fear has ruled.  That does not necessarily mean American boots on the ground, what it does mean is providing the resources necessary so the seeds of democracy can bloom.

Unfortunately, President Obama is too wrapped up in being on his Martha’s Vineyard vacation to be in the White House situation room while all of this is unfolding.  President Obama should take a cue from British Prime Minister David Cameron who cut short his vacation to go back to London and chair a British security meeting.  As Libyan rebels were flooding the streets of Tripoli on Sunday, President Obama went to the beach and then led from behind on the back nine of the Vineyard Golf Club with a buddy from Chicago.  As the leader of the free world, President Obama has shown yet again that – far from leading from any direction – he has gone AWOL from his job of being Commander in Chief.

Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more Allie cartoons)

Standard and Poor’s telegraphed that a downgrade would occur if the Obama Administration did not get spending under control.  Back in April, the credit rating agency put America on a “negative watch” because of our nation’s unsustainable $14 trillion debt. If President Obama was the true “leader” that he sold the American people on back in 2008, he would have issued a real plan to put America on a path toward fiscal sanity.  He did not.  On July 14th, Standard and Poor’s said there was a 50 percent chance that they would downgrade America’s credit rating within 90 days.  At that point President Obama should have sounded the alarm.  All we got from this White House was silence. The day of reckoning happened on August 5th and for the first time in history America did not have a AAA credit rating.  Through both World Wars of the last century, and the Great Depression, America had a AAA credit rating which was rock solid.

Standard and Poor’s decision was inevitable because of the constant spending the Obama Administration continues to push.  From the outset, Standard and Poor’s has said America needs to cut $4 trillion from its debt – almost entirely the total debt accrued since Obama took office.  At the start of the debt ceiling debate, President Obama said he wanted a “clean” bill, meaning he did not want any spending cuts tied to the raising of the debt ceiling.  But the Tea Party has put the idea of cutting the federal government’s spending front and center.  If it was not for the newly elected members of Congress, backed by the Tea Party, President Obama would have most certainly got his way. CNBC’s Rick Sentelli put it best when he said, “Blame the Tea Party…if it wasn’t for the Tea Party they would have passed the debt ceiling thumbs up [and] we would have been rated triple B!”  The Tea Party has changed the debate in Washington.

Under President Obama, America continues to have a spending problem – not a revenue problem.  As the “super committee” starts its work on cutting, I would hope that they cut up to the $4 trillion Standard and Poor’s has asked for.  I fear that they will only make marginal cuts while not solving the problem of entitlement spending.  Future generations will suffer because this generation could not make the tough decisions necessary to change our economic fate.  The Tea Party has given a voice to those Americans who want real cuts to the ever-growing federal government.   President Obama and Democrats in Congress should listen.

Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more Allie cartoons)

In 2008, a majority of Americans chose a big-city liberal politician to fix the U.S. economy.  President Obama and Democrats in Congress unleashed a wave of spending that led to our current $14.3 trillion national debt.  Big-city liberals create government handouts, they do not create jobs.  The uncontrolled spending has not worked and has only made the problem of job growth worse.

The net effect of the failed Obama policies is that a record 45.8 million Americans are on food stamps today.  These working families have been shut out of the job market due to the Obama recession.  President Obama has said time and again that he will pivot to focus on job growth.  In November of 2009, President Obama said that it was the “overriding focus” of his administration to create jobs.  Those words have rung hollow as American families continue to search for jobs.

Like the liberal that he is, President Obama does not place the blame for the failing economy on his own policies.  Right after the poor unemployment numbers were announced on Friday, President Obama bemoaned, “We’ve weathered the Arab Spring’s effect on oil and gas prices.  The Japanese earthquake and tsunami’s effect on supply chains.  The extraordinary economic uncertainty in Europe and recently markets around the globe have taken a bumpy ride.” Mr. President, you need to look into the mirror.  It is not just outside external forces that have crippled America’s economy.  It is your liberal policies that have put 45.8 million Americans on food stamps.

One of the scariest numbers that came out of last Friday’s jobs report was the number of Americans leaving the labor force.  193,000 Americans gave up looking for jobs, and only 58.1 percent of the eligible population held a job.  That is the lowest level since the summer of 1983.  The malaise resulting from Obama’s economic policies have forced millions of Americans to give up on the American dream.

The White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney, said last week, “Well, the White House doesn’t create jobs.”  Talk about an illuminating statement.  The Obama Administration has been AWOL when it comes to a real jobs agenda.  President Obama has not provided any leadership on the issue.  Yes, his administration may have “pivoted” a number of times, but no real results have emerged.  Will August be the 26th month that the unemployment rate is above 9 percent during the Obama presidency? With no jobs plan on the horizon from this administration, the answer is likely to be an unfortunate yes.

Cam Cardow / Ottawa Citizen (click to view more cartoons about the debt)

When the Obama Administration took the reins of power in Washington in early 2009, spending predictably increased to unprecedented levels.  All told, the failed stimulus cost American taxpayers $278,000 per job created.  With 9.2 percent unemployment, the stimulus only raised the debt and did not produce the jobs that were promised.

With all of its spending, the Obama Administration has added $4 trillion to the national debt and pushed us once again to the brink of the debt ceiling.  The reason America has a debt ceiling in the first place is to keep spending in check.  Having been raised 98 times since 1940, obviously the debt ceiling is more like a glass roof that continues to get shattered because of the federal government’s profligate spending habits.

Which brings us to today’s debt ceiling deal.  America’s spending problem continues under this plan thanks to failed leadership on both sides of the aisle.  The budget baseline in this “deal” already assumes that $10 trillion will be added to the debt over the next ten years. Subtract the $2.5 trillion the plan cuts and America will still see a net increase of $7 trillion added to the debt.  A $2.5 trillion cut is like using a Band-Aid when a tourniquet is needed to stop the hemorrhaging of America’s $14 trillion debt.  America continues on the path to a downgrade by the credit agencies because this so-called compromise does not cut nearly enough.  The agencies want $4 trillion in immediate cuts; this plan does not even scratch the surface and just kicks the can down the road for future generations to deal with.

The debt deal also includes a “super-committee” to recommend future cuts.  Appointing yet another Washington committee on the debt to figure out what we already know – that America has a fatal spending problem – is nothing more than the continuation of the failed business as usual.  What’s worse, this committee could end up opening a backdoor to tax increases by letting the Bush tax cuts expire.  Our catastrophic $14 trillion debt is not the result of a revenue problem, but of a spending problem.

The most shocking aspect of this whole debt drama is the way President Obama has handled it.  He has not led at all, choosing instead to engage in childish finger pointing and pouting.  With all the politicking and campaigning he has been busy with, it looks like he does not want to talk about real debt solutions.  The future of our nation is at stake, and President Obama just wants this debate to be over so it doesn’t affect his reelection.

We cannot as Americans let the politicians in Washington continue to play games with our nation’s future.  We have to force our leaders into fiscal sanity.  If this is the best plan that our divided government can pass, we must use this opportunity to rally all Americans to enact a Balance Budget Amendment in the coming months.  Real budget reform must be achieved.  Not the same old smoke and mirrors.

Jeff Parker / Florida Today (click to view cartoons about the last Space Shuttle mission)

President Obama saluted the shuttle and its crew:

“Behind Atlantis and her crew of brave astronauts stand thousands of dedicated workers who have poured their hearts and souls into America’s Space Shuttle program over the past three decades. To them and all of NASA’s incredible workforce, I want to express my sincere gratitude. You helped our country lead the space age, and you continue to inspire us each day.”

Unfortunately, the President’s gratitude will not provide jobs to the 9,000 Floridians left unemployed.  As CBS News has reported, this is a loss of over $600 million in wages that will no longer be earned or spent in Florida.  It’s not just those directly employed by NASA that will be impacted — contractors, restaurants, t-shirt vendors all stand to suffer.

Shutting down the space shuttle program will also make it harder to attract top talent to our space programs in the future.  One former NASA employee, speaking in the Washington Post, warned that “given the lengthy hiatus in the U.S. ability to launch astronauts into space, NASA and its contractor partners may run into difficulty attracting and retaining the best and brightest engineering and science talent. Many current employees with critical corporate memory are also likely to depart or retire, making it more difficult for NASA to build on past human spaceflight successes.”

The current state of America’s manned space program stands as a sad commentary on the state of our nation.  Where once we were filled with hope and optimism as we reached for the stars, today we are shutting down this vital program, ceding the heavens to the Chinese and Russians.  There is more at stake than just the jobs of the hard working men and women who staffed the shuttle program, we stand to lose our leading position in space, as well as endanger our national security.

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) underscores the ramifications of quitting the space race:

“There’s a national security component to the space program, there’s all kinds of economic and commercial applications developed in space, so I think the impact of it will be felt across the country, including in Texas and other parts of the country where there are contractors. … Right now, we don’t have anything to replace the shuttle, and that’s why these folks are hurting.”

Rubio also notes that the loss of the space shuttle program makes us more reliant on Russia:

“From now on, we have to pay the Russians $50 million-an-astronaut to send Americans to the space station. And we have no plans to have anything in place to replace the shuttle any time before 2016. For Washington, it should be ashamed it took so long to deal with this, and that something’s not in place. But it’s important for America moving forward, because China, India, are investing heavily in their space programs. We cannot afford as Americans to lose space supremacy.”

Citizens United explored how man’s journey into space was emblematic of our American exceptionalism.  In our film A City Upon A Hill: The Spirit of American Exceptionalism, Dr. Buzz Aldrin recounted his journey to the moon.  He also addressed the importance of our space program and the dire consequences should we neglect it:

“Our program has become too politicized and we will lose the number one position that this country invested a lot of money in the 60’s and 70’s to be exceptional Americans, and we’re going to lose that American exceptionalism if we allow politics to get in and muck it up.  We’ll be second, the Chinese are going to get back to the moon before we could, and if we’re not careful, the Russians will get to Mars before we do.”

Dr. Aldrin issued a bold challenge: “Why can’t Americans land on Mars permanently?  They land on Mars and become settlers – permanent, and we know how to do that, and we can do that, and lead the world as American exceptional leaders.”  It’s now up to the private sector to achieve this.

We must trust that the private sector will succeed where President Obama has failed.  Let’s return to the moon, let’s chart a course upward and onward, space must remain the American frontier.

Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more Debt Ceiling cartoons)

“Cut,” “cap,” and “balance” are three simple words that President Obama doesn’t seem to have in his lexicon.  The Cut, Cap, and Balance reform package, if passed, will put into law these critical steps in reducing our $14 trillion national debt:

1. Cut – Cuts total spending by $111 billion in the FY 2012 budget.

2. Cap – Caps total federal spending from 22.5% of GDP in 2012 to 19.9% of GDP in 2021.

3. Balance – Requires the passage of the Balance Budget Amendment before the raising of the nation’s debt limit.

The Obama Administration has no plan, and claims that we are in a debt crisis because of a revenue problem, not a spending problem.  Just last week, President Obama laughably claimed that 80 percent of Americans want a tax increase to help bring down our nation’s debt. Rasmussen had a poll saying 55 percent OPPOSE tax increases in a new debt deal.  This Administration is astoundingly tone deaf. The unemployment rate is at a crippling 9.2 percent, and Americans are struggling because of the failed economic policies of the Obama Administration. President Obama has yet to offer a credible plan to create jobs or get us out of the debt crisis. Instead, he resorts to scare tactics and temper tantrums to get his way.

Yesterday, President Obama threatened to veto the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act if it reaches his desk.  The White House called the legislation a “false and unacceptable choice.”  A “false” and “unacceptable” choice would be to let our national debt continue to climb uncontrollably.  When Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, says, “The most significant threat to our national security is our debt,” this debate is clearly not just an economical one.

The Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 2011 is a bold plan that will rescue the American economy from an economic abyss. House Republicans are leading, while President Obama and his Democrat friends do nothing but pout and propose the same tired liberal policies that have cost our economy jobs and wealth.  Future generations of Americans will look back upon this time and either come to the conclusion that Congress again took the easy way out, or that Congress for once realized it could not spend its way out of this mess. I strongly urge all House members to vote for this important piece of legislation; all votes will be scored in the Citizens United 2011 Congressional Ratings.

John Darkow / Columbia Daily Tribune (click to view more cartoons about Jobs)

Where are the jobs President Obama promised back in January 2009? Back then, the Obama Administration predicted that the jobless rate would not surpass 8 percent if the stimulus bill passed.  Of course, the stimulus bill did pass, and we haven’t seen unemployment below 8 percent since.

The failed stimulus has done nothing to put the economy on the right path towards prosperity – in fact, it cost the American taxpayer $278,000 per job created. The Obama stimulus plan was nothing but a lesson in how to waste almost a trillion dollars in taxpayer funds. (Read Citizens United’s exclusive report on where the stimulus money went.)

Americans are struggling and need real leadership in Washington. President Obama and the Democrats in Congress led us into the economic abyss that we are in now. In 2009, they had a chance to deliver “hope” and “change” by reaching a bipartisan consensus on how to fix the economy.  Instead they chose the partisan path – the path their special interests wanted and the path that has led to hard times that will be felt “for a long time to come,” according to Obama’s own Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Aside from the unemployment rate, the only other economic number that has gone up since the stimulus passed is our national debt. July 8th marked the 800th day since Democrats in Washington last passed a budget and it is no coincidence that our $14 trillion national debt continues to skyrocket. In 800 days, our debt has increased by $3.2 trillion, we’ve paid $439 billion in interest on that debt, and the government has spent $7.3 trillion. How can the federal government be successful in balancing the books and paying down the debt without a budget?

As debt ceiling negotiations continue, Republicans must hold the line on not allowing any tax increases. With another horrible jobs report, the American people need a larger tax burden like they need another trillion dollars added to our debt.

House Republicans will be introducing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution later this month.  The balanced budget amendment is part of a larger strategy to Cut, Cap, and Balance the federal government’s finances during these difficult times.  Many American families live within their means; the balanced budget amendment will force lawmakers in Washington to make the tough decisions our citizens have been making every day – finally.

Tennessee Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn will introduce amendments to the notoriously pork-heavy Energy and Water Appropriations bill this week. Blackburn’s spending cut amendments can save the American taxpayer up to $1.5 billion.  The Blackburn amendments highlight Republicans’ commitment to cut waste out of federal government spending.  While President Obama and Congressional Democrats sit idly by as the economy heads further into the gutter, Congressional Republicans are trying to fix our fiscal mess bit by bit.

President Obama seems lost in dealing with our economic crisis because he is so fixated on pushing the same old liberal ideas that just feed the status quo and make it worse. More government control and spending are no prescription for an economic recovery. The arrogance of the Obama Administration last week in saying that Americans do not care about the unemployment rate just shows that their heads are in the sand. The only people in the entire nation who don’t seem to care about the high jobless rate are the ones sitting in the White House.

R.J. Matson - St. Louis Post-Dispatch (click to view our Fireworks cartoons)

The very first tea party to be organized by women was the Edenton Tea Party – in 1774. Today’s Tea Party movement is led by many of the stars of our film Fire from the Heartland, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, Deneen Borelli, Sonnie Johnson, Dana Loesch, Michelle Malkin, Jenny Beth Martin, Michelle Moore, and Jamie Radtke, all of whom have taken an active role in the Tea Party rallies. Much like the “Ladys of Edenton,” these women are standing up to an intrusive government that has overstepped its bounds.

The cast of Fire from the Heartland inherited this grand tradition from fearless female patriots who fought for our Independence from Great Britain:

- Abigail Adams provided essential counsel to her husband as he served in the Continental Congresses which shaped our founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence.

-Mercy Otis Warren, along with her husband and Samuel Adams, helped form the Committees of Correspondence, becoming an influential author advocating for Independence.

-Molly Pitcher courageously took up the duty of loading her husband’s cannon when he fell on the battlefield, earning an appointment as a noncommissioned officer by General George Washington himself.

-Martha Washington went to live with her husband on the front lines in battlefield encampments, including at Valley Forge, supporting the cause and boosting troop morale.

-Lydia Darrah risked her life to pass information behind British enemy lines, helping to turn the tide of the American Revolution.

While the battle for Independence is no longer raging, the fire in the American heartland continues to burn bright in the hearts of conservative women.

From the Founding Mothers of our great Republic, to Clare Boothe Luce and Phyllis Schlafly, to today’s “Mama Grizzlies” like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, women are the backbone of our nation, passing our ideals and traditions on from one generation to another. Learn more about this legacy of passion, courage, and grit by watching Fire from the Heartland this 4th of July.

God Bless America and Happy Independence Day!

Eric Allie / Cagle Cartoons (click to view more Debt Ceiling cartoons)

True leaders lead and President Obama has been AWOL on the debt crisis.  So where has Obama been for nearly two months?  What we do know is that President Obama was in New York City raising money for his $1 billion reelection campaign last week.  It seems like the only deadline President Obama is worried about is June 30th – when the books are closed for second quarter fundraising.  President Obama is more concerned about being reelected than governing.  It is not even 2012 yet, and the President is already on a campaign footing.

America is truly at a crossroads with over $14 trillion in debt and 9.1 percent unemployment. President Obama has not produced a legitimate plan to help get Americans back to work.  Last week, the government announced that new weekly unemployment claims went up more than expected to 429,000.  This is the 11th week in a row that new unemployment claims were over 400,000. The Obama Administration said last year would have a “Recovery Summer,” but they were relying on the failed stimulus bill that was passed over two years ago.   One year later, America’s economic engine is still stuck in reverse, and this month’s unemployment numbers do not look promising.

It is a sad state of affairs when Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says, “We don’t have a precise read on why this slower pace of growth is persisting.” Maybe it’s because President Obama has not had a clear economic plan that would lead to a long term recovery other than more spending, more regulations, and more taxes. His solution has always been that big government could fix it. Government is not the solution; we must let private industry lead us out of this economic quagmire.

To add jobs, America must get its fiscal house in order.  Last week, Citizens United participated in a press conference with a number of United States Senators and Congressmen who have signed the Cut, Cap, Balance Pledge.  “Cut,” “cap,” and “balance” are three simple words that if the Obama Administration had followed them over the last two-and-a-half years America would not be stuck in the economic rut that it is currently in.

The Cut, Cap, Balance pledge has three stipulations for raising the debt ceiling:

1. Cut - Substantial cuts in spending that will reduce the deficit next year and thereafter.
2. Cap - Enforceable spending caps that will put federal spending on a path to a balanced budget.
3. Balance - Congressional passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — but only if it includes both a spending limitation and a super-majority for raising taxes, in addition to balancing revenues and expenses.

The greatest part about this pledge is that everyday Americans can sign onto it and hold their elective representatives accountable.  In hard economic times, American families cut, cap, and balance their own budgets at home.  It is time for the federal government to follow suit.

With 9.1 percent unemployment, and 65 percent of Americans saying the country is on the wrong track, President Obama should be at the negotiation table this week with hat in hand.  Hard cuts need to be made now or Washington, DC will soon be looking more like Athens, Greece.

R.J. Matson / St. Louis Post-Dispatch (click to view more cartoons)

Want to Talk in Private?  A Coffee Shop is Far More Discreet than the White House

The Obama administration boasts of its “unprecedented” transparency achieved by placing select records of White House visitor logs on its website.  The visitor logs allegedly allow you to see who has got the ear of the President and his staff.  You can view how often labor union bosses, lobbyists, and special interest group representatives stop by the White House to influence policy.

It sounds like a nice way to hold the administration accountable – until you learn how they circumvent this transparency measure.  First, only visitors to the West Wing are logged.  In other words, if you don’t meet with a lobbyist in a certain office, you won’t be on the official record.  So where do Obama’s advisors choose to meet with lobbyists?  There are many offices in the White House complex that are not logged and made publically available – one commonly used “off the grid” space is the White House Conference Center.

But many staffers have found meeting lobbyists on White House grounds may send the wrong message, so they choose instead to meet in secret at neighboring restaurants such as Caribou Coffee.  Perhaps the anonymity of a public place helps Obama staffers reconcile their meetings with lobbyists and special interests with President Obama’s public denunciation of them.

These efforts to meet with special interests in secret are well documented, but they may just be the tip of the iceberg.  It has been revealed that Chinese hackers have been attempting to infiltrate the personal email accounts of senior government officials. If Obama’s staff is following the law, they would only be engaging in official communication through White House email addresses.  However, if they are using their personal email accounts to conduct official business in secret, efforts to hack their personal email accounts may pose a security concern.  Given the administration track record, it’s more likely than not that Obama’s staff is evading record keeping requirements in an effort to hide their activities from the public — in doing so they’re creating a risk to our national security.

Obamacare is too Expensive? Let’s Give You a Waiver

The Obama Administration and its legislative champion, Nancy Pelosi, rammed Obamacare through the legislative process.  Pelosi proclaimed “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it.”  The plan was sold to the American people with lies including Obama’s pledge that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.”

Now that we see some Obamacare provisions in effect, they are stifling businesses across our nation.  The onerous requirements of Obamacare are proving unworkable for companies — they are faced with laying off employees, dropping health insurance all together, or shuttering their doors, based on the new costs thrust upon them by President Obama.

Many employers had offered lower income workers “mini-med” plans.  They had high deductibles and low annual spending caps.  These plans allowed millions of Americans access to health care they otherwise would not receive.  Obamacare phases out the spending caps.  This raises the cost of providing health care, and many employers can’t afford these “reforms.”

It is hurting businesses of every size across the nation; but if you’re a friend of President Obama or Nancy Pelosi there’s no need to worry.  The Obama administration has been doling out waivers from this requirement.  Nearly 1,400 waivers have been granted.  The United Federation of Teachers, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, and SEIU all got one.  But it’s not just Obama’s union supporters that have been granted waivers — in April, an additional 38 businesses in Nancy Pelosi’s Congressional District were also granted reprieves from this expensive requirement.

How Dare You Create Non-Union Jobs

Our economy is struggling.  Unemployment remains high at 9.1 percent.  One would think the Obama Administration would embrace any attempt to create jobs and growth in our economy.  For example, Boeing planned to open a facility in South Carolina this summer to produce 787 Dreamliner airplanes.  This plant would have brought hundreds of jobs to South Carolina.  Most people would consider this to be good news.

Rather than applauding this effort to create jobs, members of the Obama Administration are fighting against it.  The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) is taking efforts to stop Boeing from creating these high-paying, non-union jobs.  A private corporation should be allowed to make a business decision to create a plant where it sees fit.  The federal government should not be dictating how to run a private corporation.  Boeing was well within its rights to invest in a new factory in a right-to-work state like South Carolina.

Organized labor has a strong supporter on the NLRB, Obama gave SEIU lawyer Craig Becker a recess appointment to the board.  With Becker on board, it’s no surprise that the NLRB has filed a complaint against Boeing for choosing to create jobs in a right-to-work state like South Carolina rather than the more union friendly state of Washington.

Nate Beeler / Washington Examiner (view more cartoons by Beeler)

After only a little more than a month on the job, President Obama must be doing a lot of second-guessing about his choice to put DWS in charge of the national Democrat party machine during his re-election campaign.  Since her tenure began, DWS has proven to be a bona-fide gaffe machine while illustrating questionable judgment by making a wide range of foolish and otherwise false statements.

Two of the first lessons newly elected leaders of political parties are generally taught is to concentrate on raising money and to always stay on message.  Many of the words DWS has chosen to date are well off the political reservation and have caused major blowback.  Simply put, she has wandered off message.  If President Obama’s goal is to keep independent voters in states like Colorado, Indiana, Nevada, North Carolina, and Virginia in his column, the inflammatory left-wing language coming from DWS is clearly not wooing the independent voters that will be vital for the 2012 election.

Here are some of the “worst hits” from Debbie Wasserman Schultz the Democrats’ “Mouth of the South” to date:

Says Republicans want to return to Jim Crow laws because of their efforts to combat vote fraud
“Now you have the Republicans, who want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws and literally – and very transparently – block access to the polls to voters who are more likely to vote for Democratic candidates than Republican candidates.”

Lying about Medicare:  says Rep. Paul Ryan budget plan will “throw you to the wolves”
“They would take the people who are younger than 55 years old today and tell them: ‘You know what, you’re on your own. Go and find private health insurance in the health care insurance market; we’re going to throw you to the wolves and allow insurance companies to deny you coverage and drop you for pre-existing conditions. We’re going to give you X amount of dollars, and you figure it out.”

THE FACTS: “First, the Ryan plan explicitly forbids insurance companies from denying coverage to anyone who qualifies for Medicare, including those who have pre-existing illnesses. Second, it does not merely send money to the elderly and leave them to their own devices in arranging for medical care.”  (The Associated Press, 6/2/2011)

Says GOP is waging a “war on women”
“So if you look on balance at the entire record, their record is anti-women, their record is a war on women and it’s a priority for them.”

In response to the comments, several GOP Congresswomen issued a joint statement condemning her remarks:

“Apparently it’s open season on Republican women.  Between Ed Schultz’s tasteless insult of a conservative woman radio host, and Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz’s comments that the Republican Party is ‘anti-women,’ the tone in Washington, D.C. has reached a new low…”

Initially gives disgraced Rep. Anthony Weiner a free pass, falsely describes Weinergate as “a personal matter”
“I think Anthony Weiner is dealing with a personal matter and that is where it should be left.”

Questions why illegal immigration laws should be enforced
“I think the president was clearly articulating that his position – the Democratic position – is that we need comprehensive immigration reform…We have 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country that are part of the backbone of our economy and this is not only a reality but a necessity. And that it would be harmful – the Republican solution that I’ve seen in the last three years is that we should just pack them all up and ship them back to their own countries and that in fact it should be a crime and we should arrested them all.”

Attacks Republicans on foreign cars, but owns a foreign car herself
“If it were up to the candidates for president on the Republican side, we would be driving foreign cars; they would have let the auto industry in American go down the tubes,’ she said at a breakfast for reporters organized by the Christian Science Monitor. But according to Florida motor vehicle records, the Wasserman Schultz household owns a 2010 Infiniti FX35, a Japanese car whose parent company is Nissan, another Japanese company. The car appears to be hers, since its license plate includes her initials.” (The Hill, 5/26/2011)

Says economy is improving as unemployment ticks up to 9.1 percent
“You’ve got an economy that is – is really beginning to pick up the pace.”

At the end of the day, DWS might be on to something.  Regularly making false, outrageous, and hypocritical statements on various issues might be better than talking about the atrocious 9.1 percent unemployment rate, explaining why 59 percent of the American people disapprove of President Obama’s handling of the economy, or why a whopping 89 percent think the economy is in bad shape, according to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll.  Can President Obama afford to keep DWS around through November 2012?  We’ll see.