The federal government has accumulated more new debt–$3.22 trillion ($3,220,103,625,307.29)—during the tenure of the 111th Congress than it did during the first 100 Congresses combined, according to official debt figures published by the U.S. Treasury.

That equals $10,429.64 in new debt for each and every one of the 308,745,538 people counted in the United States by the 2010 Census.

Read more – 111th Congress Added More Debt Than First 100 Congresses Combined

The Senate today passed the compromise legislation to continue the Bush tax credits.  Within that legislation were production tax credits for bio-diesel and renewable diesel fuels, credits for steel industry fuel, alternative vehicle fuels, and an extension of the 45 cents per gallon tax credit for ethanol blending in gasoline.

This is not good policy, and conservatives who just booted this Congress to the curb should be outraged, and vocally so.  We just elected a conservative House and a less progressive Senate because we’re tired of this kind of governance, yet we’re sitting idly by while the lame ducks continue to push through their agenda!  This legislation should be voted down, and then taken up in the new Congress on a straight-up vote on extending, or making permanent, the Bush rates.  Our only hope now lies with Nancy Pelosi’s House.

Ethanol is good for only two things –

fraternity parties and corn farmers.  It is bad for automobiles, bad for the environment, bad for fuel economy, and bad for the Gulf of Mexico, where runoff from over-fertilized farms in the Midwest results in a dead zone that grows larger with each ethanol incentivized year.

Even Al Gore has admitted that the politics and promotions that supported ethanol utilization as a transportation fuel supplement are lies!

Why are conservatives sitting idly by and letting this happen?  Are we so enamored that Obama compromised on the tax deal that we don’t care what it includes?  Do we have so little confidence in the Congress we just elected that we’ll accept anything to get the tax credits extended?

It’s been said that “he who laughs last, laughs loudest.”  Terminated Representatives and Senators will be laughing all the way to their speaking engagements, book tours, guest spots on Letterman, and ambassadorships if we allow this excrement to go through.

Get mad, again!  The fight is not over, and our work is not done.  We can’t rest on our laurels to prepare for the 2012 election cycle.  The 2010 Congress has not gone home.

In this posting, we would like to graphically display what we said by showing both the 2008 electoral map and the 2012 projected electoral map.

 Contniue reading at http://winwithjmc.com/archives/2203 

John Couvillon is a political consultant. His company is JMC Enterprises of Louisiana, Inc. with expertise in the data analysis aspects of political campaigns, such as poll sample development/analysis, development of targeted voter files for phone canvassing or mail outs, campaign strategy, and demographic consulting. See his site at WinWithJMC.com for more information.

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Previous winners include such political luminaries as former New Orleans Mayor Ray “School Bus” Nagin and former New Orleans Congressman “Dollar Bill” Jefferson.

As usual, this year the competition was tough with many deserving applicants.

One candidate who merited serious consideration was Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who spent much of his time this year out of the state fundraising and promoting his book on “leadership.” Too bad he did not spend much time doing his job as Governor or using any of his vaunted leadership skills to deal with the major problems in Louisiana.

Of course, another qualified nominee was President Barack Obama. When he was not apologizing for America or bowing to foreign leaders, he was busy passing unpopular legislation like his socialist healthcare plan. Incredibly, the delusional President was shocked when the American people voted against his party in the mid-term elections. It is amazing that he cannot grasp the fact that voters react negatively when detested bills are shoved down their throats.

Despite a plethora of deserving nominations, the clear winner of this year’s award is none other than that San Francisco treat, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. This Botox buffoon personified the problems of the out of touch Democratic Party. Throughout the year, Pelosi remained clueless about the strength of the tea party and labeled the movement “Astroturf.” She pushed for a healthcare bill that she did not read. In fact, Pelosi claimed that “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

Pelosi has such minimal knowledge of economics that she believes the best way to stimulate growth is to spend money on food stamps and unemployment insurance. According to Pelosi, “it is the biggest bang for the buck when you do food stamps and unemployment insurance.”

When this liberal is not extolling the virtues of food stamps, she is constantly waging war against Republicans trying to limit the size of government or extend the Bush tax cuts. One bill that has Pelosi’s support is the Dream Act, which is the first step toward amnesty for illegal aliens. The Speaker is trying to jam this bill through during the lame duck session of Congress.

Not only is Pelosi wrong on the issues, she also exudes an arrogance that is not befitting a politician who is second in line to the presidency. Her haughtiness was on display in her dealings with Republicans. She even shunned GOP moderates like U.S. Congressman Joseph Cao (R-New Orleans) and refused to meet with him.

To travel from her San Francisco district to the nation’s capitol, Pelosi demanded the use of an expensive Air Force jet, which cost the taxpayers millions of dollars. She stocked the jet with gourmet food and the best liquor and also used it to travel to exotic destinations throughout the world. In Pelosi’s view, she was entitled to these benefits as Madam Speaker. Thankfully, her reign of error is coming to an end. Her successor will be Congressman John Boehner of Ohio, who has committed to use commercial aircraft to travel home. This move shows that Boehner, unlike Nancy Pelosi, understands he is a public servant, not a monarch.  

After leading her party to historic defeats on November 2nd, Pelosi was arrogant enough to run for House Minority Leader. The amazing thing is that Democrats were stupid enough to elect her as their leader once again.

Her leadership as Speaker was pathetic and foolish Democrats can expect more of the same from their new Minority Leader. Good luck Democrats!

Jeff Crouere is the Host of “Ringside Politics,” which airs at 7:30 p.m. Fri. and 10:00 p.m. Sun. on WLAE-TV 32, a PBS station, and 7 till 11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990 AM in New Orleans and the Northshore. He is the Political Analyst for WGNO-TV ABC26 and a Columnist for selected publications. For more information, visit his web site at RingsidePolitics.com. E-mail him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com.

PELOSI PLANNING PARTY FOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Mon Nov 08 2010 16:34:33 ET

Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the United States House of Representatives requests the pleasure of your company at a reception honoring the Accomplishments of the 111th Congress on Wednesday, the tenth day of November, two thousand ten at three thirty in the afternoon Cannon Caucus Room 345 Cannon House Office Building.

Conservatives have plenty to celebrate out of the 111th Congress.

- It failed to produce Card Check.

- It failed to produce Cap And Trade.

- It did produce a 65-seat electoral holocaust which cleaned out its majority and paves the way for leadership by actual adults in the 112th Congress.

So we’d be happy to drink a toast to Pelosi and her accomplishments. Heck, we’d be happy to show up drunk, get drunker while drinking Queen Nan’s booze and, who knows? Maybe tackle a Christmas tree.

So today, when we attempt to convince conservatives in the 2nd District to get out the vote to send Cao back to the House of Representatives, we’re bound to catch criticism from some quarters as hypocritical or “selling out.” We’ll address that, too.

On the surface, in the middle and at bottom this is not difficult stuff. Cao might not be much of a Republican, but he is a Republican. Cao’s opponent Cedric Richmond absolutely is not. If you’re a conservative, you’re probably a Republican and that would indicate you’re a Cao voter even though Cao is certainly no conservative.

But there is what looks like a small but potentially significant percentage of vote in the 2nd District which is leaning away from Cao. Not toward Richmond, but to independent 3rd-party candidate Anthony Marquize. Some members of the Greater New Orleans Tea Party are now pushing Marquize, in somewhat indelicate fashion at times. The gist of the attacks is Cao’s vote in favor of Obamacare the first time it went through the House – though he did vote against final passage.

Marquize is little-known and poorly financed. According to his last campaign finance report dated Sept. 30, he’s raised $7,700 and spent $5,600 in this race. He can’t win, because regardless of the quality of his message almost nobody in the district knows who he is – and with financials like that nobody in the district will know who he is by Election Day.

Cao’s record of attempting to placate the heavy Democrat vote in the 2nd District is deserving of some level of opprobrium among conservatives. There should be no problem with a debate on the Right about that tactic – one could argue that Cao’s 2008 election was a fluke in the first place, it could be taken for granted that he’s going to lose either this fall or as soon as the Democrats find a viable candidate to take him on and as such attempting to steer a narrow path to reelection by voting for leftist positions is a fool’s errand. Cao chose to attempt to represent his constituents, most of whom have disastrously stupid ideas about policy and the performance of President Obama, by hewing to their preferences as much as practicable. Either position you might favor can be supported in an argument.

But such an argument is best made in a party primary. If Cao had attracted a primary challenger, like Mr. Marquize for example, that would have been a healthy race and perhaps Mr. Marquize might have gotten some traction. If nothing else, Cao would have had to explain to the conservatives who turned out in force to help elect him in 2008 why he spends so much time cozying up to the President – which makes us break out in hives here at the Hayride regardless of the political efficacy of doing so.

In short, that would have been a worthy discussion. And Cao would have likely won it, seeing as though his fundraising prowess as a Republican who can get elected in a Democrat district would have buried an insurgent candidate in this cycle. But the point would have been made, and it would have been made without contributing to electing a candidate that conservatives and moderates alike despise.

And that’s the difference between supporting Cao and opposing Mike Castle. Castle lost a GOP primary, just as Cao may have lost one should Marquize have challenged him in that venue. There is a difference between losing on principle and slashing one’s own throat. And if you’re looking for a more practical difference between Cao and Castle, consider that Castle voted in favor of Cap and Trade and Cao opposed it. That difference alone means Cao has value to conservatives.

As things stand now, though, the small percentage of the vote that Marquize may get from disaffected conservatives (One percent? Three? Five?) could well be what Richmond needs to get elected. The Public Policy Polling survey last week which gave Richmond a 45-36 lead might be an outlier; the poll sample for that survey skewed more heavily favorable to Richmond than the electorate will be, and our estimation is that Richmond’s lead is probably closer to five percent. Whatever percentage of the vote which is contemplating pulling the lever for Marquize could be applied to narrow the gap and contribute to defeating the Democrat – if those voters are thinking practically.

Let’s remember that the opposition to Richmond isn’t just ideological. You could make the argument that a Cao who spends his time cuddling up to Obama and giving the President a friendly vote here and there renders him no different from a Democrat. But the one thing nobody has questioned about Cao is his integrity. He’s honest and he stays out of trouble. That can’t be said about Richmond, who lost his law license for a time after running for a New Orleans city council seat in a district he didn’t live in. Whose involvement in a non-profit scam looks like a classic execution of the Dollar Bill Jefferson family business. Whose association with unsavory characters, including a murderer, continues. And whose behavior in drinking establishments resulted in a police citation in 2007. It should be a priority of all voters unaligned with such a candidate on ideological grounds – and some who are so aligned – to prevent him from attaining congressional office.

Finally, Cao’s utility to the conservative cause in the next Congress will be satisfactory for the sole reason than a re-elected Cao would vote for John Boehner, rather than Nancy Pelosi, as the Speaker of the House. Once that vote is taken and Boehner wins thanks to a Republican majority Cao is part of, the kinds of left-wing legislation he angered conservatives by voting for will no longer be part of the landscape. He might be voting against good bills, but when no bad bills can reach the floor under a GOP majority Cao can’t do damage. And for that Boehner vote alone, Cao is the right choice for conservatives. Any other vote hands the Democrats a vote Nancy Pelosi can count on to remain as Speaker of the House.

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We take a different perspective, and offer our sincere and heartfelt thanks to the Obama administration for providing the hope and change this country sorely needed.

 


Throughout that campaign the administrative branch of the federal government was personified by George W. Bush as he attempted to invoke a kinder and gentler government, a “compassionate conservatism,” by growing entitlement programs and ignoring the impending bankruptcy of Social Security and Medicare.  It was the Bush administration that offered the first Keynesian stimulus package, and both Obama and his Republican opponent abandoned the campaign to meet with the president in Washington to work together to sell the program to the American people and to push it through Congress.   Of course it met no resistance in that chamber, for, though America has forgotten and the populist media chooses not to remind her, that chamber was controlled by Obama’s party and had been for several years.  Spending in general, and generously funded entitlement programs in particular, were consistently endowed by the House of Representatives that actually controls the federal budget process and America’s purse strings.

Unfortunately, they were aided by Republicans also in that chamber who had abandoned any conservatism they’d ever harbored and had rather become party to the spending and wheeling / dealing of their Democratic brethren.

So Mr. Obama is not entirely wrong to point his finger at Republicans when asked to identify the party responsible for the economic meltdown he inherited from Mr. Bush.

All Obama did was make it worse!

Right out of the gate, Obama began pushing his policies of hope and change.  Cap and Trade legislation was proposed, and passed the House.  Universal heathcare was proposed, and a watered down version was passed “by whatever means necessary,” and against the documented will of the majority of Americans.  Gargantuan stimulus packages followed on the heels of the first Bush package, and funded bailouts of United Auto Workers Union members in the government’s support of the salvation of failing automobile manufacturers.

America became furious, and the Tea Party movement was born.  True conservatives who had sat quietly on the sidelines during the Bush years were awakened by an internal call to action.  Many became active in the governance of our nation for the first time in their lives, choosing to do much more than simply vote occasionally. 

A dormant majority is dormant no more.  A new generation of Republicans has been identified which truly carries the mantle of the conservative cause.  Established “old school” Republicans are livid, but frightened, as most of them reside in the Senate where many have two to four years left in a six year term.  They sense the loss of their base, and are fearful that the “insurgent” Tea Partiers will not become dormant once again as the most immediate election, the 2010 “mid-terms,”  approach, then pass.

We must assure that their fears are well founded.  We cannot be satisfied with electing a new generation of conservatives to Washington and return to our lives of complacency.  The Lindsey Graham’s and Mitch McConnell’s of the Senate will still be there, and John McCain, selling himself as a “born again” conservative, will get elected to another six year term.

But Harry Reid will no longer be majority leader of the Senate, and Nancy Pelosi will be terminated and replace by John Boehner, a true conservative.  He will be supported by the “young guns” of the Republican Party, Messrs. Cantor of Virginia, McCarthy of California, and Ryan of Wisconsin, and others of similar mindset, the likes of which the Democratic Party and the old school Republican Party have not seen for generations.

In them rests the hope that Barack Obama has brought to the United States, and with them is represented the change that is so sorely needed.  We owe it to the Obama campaign and administration for having brought this hope and change about.

But it’s a hope we must not allow to die.  The 2010 elections are just the half way point, so the hope must be kept alive through the 2012 election cycle and beyond.  By keeping it alive, we can truly and significantly change this nation for the better for generations to come.

So the next time you hear someone scoff sarcastically about Obama’s hope and change, point out to them that he is indeed responsible for the changes that are occurring in our country, and the hope those changes promise.

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Twenty minutes after midnight, the gavel hit and the House adjourned. Democrats, quietly, began to stream out of the chamber. I hung by the door, back against a column, taking it all in. The words on every Democrat’s lips: “Good luck.” Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy, facing a tough reelection battle in Ohio, was the recipient of numerous hugs, cheek kisses, and well wishes from her colleagues. So was Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, facing the same in Pennsylvania. The conversations, however brief, sounded heavy, almost elegiac. For a few minutes, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi mingled a foot away, her fire-engine red suit at the center of a swirl of Democrats hustling into the night. Pelosi smiled her usual grin — immobile and broad — and wished fellow Democrats the best. Some stopped to chat, but many just rushed past, uninterested in small talk. Rep. Tom Perriello, a vulnerable freshman Democrat from Virginia, was one who skipped by, but Pelosi called him back, inviting him to join her circle of allies by the elevator. Their talk was short: He tried to sound upbeat about his chances. Pelosi, of course, smiled.

After a couple minutes, Perriello, along with other nervous Democrats, left Pelosi’s side and stepped out onto the Capitol steps, descending down under the shadow of the dome. As they ducked into the black of night, rain poured onto their jackets and ties, and the wind whistled around the Hill. No word on whether this storm will cease.

No vote on settling the Bush tax cut issue, despite the fact 47 Democrats were willing to go along with extending all the current rates at least on dividends and capital gains. No vote on a budget.

And no hope for re-election for many.

It’s storming in Washington today. But the storm will spread nationwide between now and Nov. 2. On that day, it will wash Pelosi and her Democrat majority out of power.