The Big Announcement? Palin to keynote Tea Party rally in Iowa

Real Clear Politics: In the latest indication that her sights are still set on a presidential run, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has accepted an invitation to keynote a Tea Party rally in Waukee, Iowa, on Sept. 3, RealClearPolitics has learned.

The Labor Day weekend visit to the nation's first voting state comes after Palin indicated during an appearance on Fox News earlier this month that she would make her decision about whether to launch a campaign in August or September.

All signs now point to September as the month when Palin would throw her hat into the ring, as logistical concerns ranging from fundraising to getting her name on the ballot in various states would likely preclude further delay. [MORE]

As my regular readers know, I have always believed that Palin would run in 2012. For me the question has always been what would she run for. Will she run to win the White House or will she run just to shape the GOP field? She has the power to do both, so time will actually tell.

I cannot think of a better time or venue for Palin to announce. A TEA Party rally with the theme of "Restoring America" is tailor made for Palin who constantly works in themes or restore, renew and revive. As everyone knows, September 3rd would be cutting it close for throwing in your hat for 2012.

While a Palin announcement would be sure to generate wall to wall coverage on any given day, an announcement on September 3rd would guarantee she would dominate a slow news weekend for three days. Three crucial days when Americans are actually getting together with family and discussing things like politics. This would be a classic Palin media manipulation.

One way or another, Palin will have to make her 2012 intentions clear by Labor Day.

Via: Memeorandum
Via: Real Clear Politics
Via: Conservatives 4 Palin

The Debt Ceiling Debate: The Obama vs. Boehner speeches (Videos)

I just got through watching both Obama's and John Boehner's speeches. Again, I feel like vomiting over the whole foolish mess. With Obama's ridiculous lies about Social Security and Boehner's foolish entertainment of Democrat's disingenuous compromises, I am rapidly losing hope that America will dodge this bullet.

Of the two speeches, Obama's was clearly the worse. Obama's speech could have easily been spliced together from his past speeches over the last two years. It was the same old dog and pony show we have seen over and over again.

• Class warfare, complete with evil corporate jets - check.
• One sided shared sacrifice - check.
• Blame Bush - check.

and the list goes on and on.

No where in Obama's 15 minute speech did Obama offer a clear cut path plan of action. Instead, it was the usual dump it all in Congress' lap and then take to the podium to play the role of college professor. Of course in doing so, Obama made his usual massive contradictions. Like this gem:

[...]In the past, raising the debt ceiling was routine. Since the 1950s, Congress has always passed it, and every President has signed it. President Reagan did it 18 times. George W. Bush did it seven times. And we have to do it by next Tuesday, August 2nd, or else we won’t be able to pay all of our bills.

[...] But the new approach that Speaker Boehner unveiled today, which would temporarily extend the debt ceiling in exchange for spending cuts, would force us to once again face the threat of default just six months from now. In other words, it doesn’t solve the problem.

So, Reagan had to deal with 18 extensions of the debt ceiling over 8 year, which breaks down to less than 6 months intervals and the economy thrived under those conditions. However, a six month extension today would be catastrophe? This is why Obama is so disingenuous and phony.

Boehner is once again talking the talk but failing to walk the walk. Boehner would not be in the pressure cooker had he declared way back in November that the debt ceiling was not going to be raised. Had he taken that stance eight months ago, he would have had eight months to defuse all the liberal arguments, scare tactics and power plays. He would have been in the position of demanding Democrats start coming up with their cuts to go along with the Republican cuts. The markets would have known months ago that America was not raising its debt ceiling and that it was going to use the next eight months to seriously tackle the problem, rather than try to mash something together in less than a month.

The CBO's scoring of Boehner's plan clearly shows that Boehner is more concern about the political aspects of the debate than actually forcing real change. Pity for all of us.

Via: Memeorandum
Via: The Washington Post
Via: WhiteHouse.gov
Via: The Right Scoop
Via: Politico

The Debt Ceiling Debate - Liars and Losers on display

I have been watching the debt ceiling debate with absolute disgust. Seriously, I am on the verge of vomiting from the outright lies, distortions, political games and typical Washington foolishness. Never in my life have I witness such dysfunction!


First we have Obama who has now taken to flat out lying to the American people. Today on CBS News Obama was asked a straight forward question about whether or not Social Security checks would go out next month and here is what the Liar In Chief said:

CBS News: President Obama on Tuesday said he cannot guarantee that retirees will receive their Social Security checks August 3 if Democrats and Republicans in Washington do not reach an agreement on reducing the deficit in the coming weeks.

"I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it," Mr. Obama said in an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley, according to excerpts released by CBS News.

This is a bold face lie, plain and simple. The Social Security Administration claims to have $2.5 trillion surplus. Monthly expenditures for Social Security is about $60 billion. How then on God's green Earth can Obama say with a straight face that he cannot guarantee seniors will receive their on August 3rd?

Obama should be shown the door immediately for lying to the American people like this and CBS News should have their licence revoked for not calling Obama out on such a lie. It is absolutely disgusting!

Aside from a lapdog media, Obama is comfortable lying to the public because he knows he is dealing with a bunch of loser Republicans. The Republican leadership is a bunch of losers because they immediately went down the road of agreeing to raise the debt ceiling from the get go.

Back in January when they took control of the House, Republicans were quick to agree with the left's lie that calamity would befall the world if the debt ceiling was not raise. Now we have Republican leadership willing to abdicate it constitutional authority of the purse strings to the president in order to avoid political heat.

Enter loser Mitch McConnell:

Desperate to get out of the political box they helped to create, Senate Republicans are actively pursuing a new plan under which the debt ceiling would grow in three increments over the remainder of this Congress unless lawmakers approve a veto-proof resolution of disapproval.

In effect lawmakers would be surrendering the very power of approval that the GOP has used to force the debt crisis now. But by taking the disapproval route, Republicans can shift the onus more onto the White House and Democrats since a two-thirds majority would be needed to stop any increase that President Barack Obama requests.

“It gives the president 100 percent of the responsibility for increasing the debt limit if he chooses not to have any spending reductions,” Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, the Republican Conference chairman, told reporters Tuesday. [MORE]

Mitch McConnell must be the stupidest man on earth. If he thinks abdicating his constitutional responsibility to Obama will stop Obama. I have two words for McConnell ... "bully pulpit". Obama will, with the aid of a complicit media, use the bully pulpit to spin raising the debt ceiling endlessly by claiming all spending as much needed "investments" (e.g. we need to "invest" in high speed rail, we need to "invest" in new infrastructural, we need to "invest" in fill in the blank). The media will be all to happy to find statistics and economists who will back up the need for these "investments".

The reason why the debt ceiling debate has turned into a parade of liars and losers is because neither Republican nor Democrat has the guts to force Washington to live within its means. If Washington was forced to live "pay check to pay check" like so many Americans have to, it would quickly find that it would be forced to make real and drastic cuts to spending.
For the first time in history, Washington would have to do away with duplicate departments, failed programs, crazy projects, corporate welfare, subsides, non-essential military spending and of course congressional and executive perks. Furthermore, the American people would actually get to see exactly what the welfare state is costing them. Will Americans be willing to pay for lavish things like free presicription drugs for all seniors regardless of their income? Or will Americans be willing to give the children of illegal aliens a free college education instead or paying for infrastructure improvements? Faced with such stark choices, would Americans continue to be so passive about government spending?  I doubt it.

What I would not give to have one adult step into this fray and inject much needed commonsense into the debate.  Perhaps, Sarah Palin might come to the rescue with a scathing Facebook post.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: CBS News

Via: SSA.gov

Via: Politico