First the White House National Security Advisor, John Brennan, said Republicans were briefed on the FBI detainment of the Christmas Day panty-bomber, including that the terrorist had been mirandized. In fact, that was not true.

Now John Brennan says critics of the White House are serving ‘the goals of Al Qaeda.’

When did Barack Obama become a White House critic? Chief among those helping Al Qaeda is Barack Obama.

• The mirandizing of the panty-bomber delayed vital intelligence collection. Shutting down GTMO and bringing those prisoners to the United States not only brings Al Qaeda loyalists closer in, but also creates more domestic targets.
• Giving Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a civilian trial so he has a soapbox to spew Al Qaeda propaganda before American media gives Al Qaeda a greater media megaphone than Al Jazeera.
• Leaking damaging information to demoralize CIA operatives as they go about trying to protect us from the shadows emboldens Al Qaeda.
• Broadcasting that the CIA sustains a serious setback due to Al Qaeda’s attack in Afghanistan gives Al Qaeda new recruiting PR.

There is no greater aider and abetter of Al Qaeda than Barack Obama’s White House. Through sheer incompetence and arrogance, they are handing over to Al Qaeda vital intelligence and giving them all the PR they need to effectively recruit new terrorists.

How many Americans will die because of Barack Obama’s handling of national security?

Tomorrow, Senator Jim DeMint’s Senate Conservatives Fund is launching a money bomb for Marco Rubio.

You need to understand specifically why it is important that this be a success.

DeMint is under massive and sustained attacks from establishment Republicans for daring to challenge the hand picked candidates of the Washington GOP crowd. These people think you and DeMint are a joke. These people think that you cannot beat them at what they view as their game.

They blame Jim DeMint for pushing Arlen Specter to the Democrats. Even the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal attacked Jim DeMint for endorsing Pat Toomey. But now Toomey is beating both Specter and Sestak in the polling.

Then there is Marco Rubio, the target of the present money bomb. The Republican leadership in Washington flocked to Charlie Crist. They launched “on background” attacks against Jim DeMint in Roll Call for daring to step out of line and back Rubio.

And all the while they said DeMint could not win. He could not raise the money. You would not give the money. And the conservative effort would fail.

That is why it is important to support this money bomb. That is why it is important to give what you can. Show Washington that Jim DeMint and conservatives across America will take back the Republican Party from the leaders who support compromising with Obama on national health care, who support bailing out automakers, and who support plans like TARP.

If Jim DeMint fails, it will be seen as our failure.

Go here, read the note from Senator DeMint, then give what you can. And if you can give a little extra to help the Senate Conservatives Fund, so much the better.

I’m in for $100.00. Who is with me?

RedState Morning Briefing
For February 9, 2010

Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.

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This is troubling.

A 1993 federal law forces about 116,000 voters with unknown addresses to stay on the Kansas voter list. That means almost 7 percent of Kansas voters have addresses where mail cannot be delivered. Kansas has about 1.7 million registered voters.

The number of voters with questionable addresses was as high as 174,000 in May 2008, and is down from November 2007 when it was about 154,000. The numbers vary over time and are reduced when lists are purged after federal elections.

There’s a Senate seat at play in Kansas this year, along with the gubernatorial race.

The steady drumbeat for Marco Rubio keeps going on and on. Today he is picking up the endorsement of Congressman Mike Pence.

Congressman Pence said, “I am proud to endorse Marco Rubio for the United States Senate. Marco Rubio’s faith in free markets, limited government and traditional moral values make him the right choice for Republicans in this race. At a time when the American people long for leaders of principle, Marco Rubio will be a courageous check and balance on the current Washington establishment.

“With Washington spending money we don’t have and empowering the government at the expense of individual freedom, we need more leaders like Marco Rubio who are willing to take a stand for the common sense and common values of the American people.”

His full endorsement press release is below the fold. How long before someone starts a Draft Pence-Rubio 2012 website?

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These people never stop generating the laughs.

There are thirty inches of snow in Washington, DC. Here in Macon, Georgia, an area global warming scientists have long predicted would become a desert, we are 24 inches into a rain surplus in the past 365 calendar days.

You know what this all means right? We need a new federal agency to “study and report on the changing climate.”

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, announced NOAA will set up the new Climate Service to operate in tandem with NOAA’s National Weather Service and National Ocean Service.

“Whether we like it or not, climate change represents a real threat,” Locke said Monday at a news conference.

Lubchenco added, “Climate change is real, it’s happening now.” She said climate information is vital to the wind power industry, coastal community planning, fishermen and fishery managers, farmers and public health officials.

Please tell me, when is the climate not changing? As we orbit the sun orbiting the center of the Milky Way Galaxy our climate will, as it has done since God first said “Let there be light”, continue to change.

There is nothing new under the sun. This is just the 21st century equivalent of the 5000 year old sun worshipping religions.

It should be no surprise that an organization like the New York Times, which is a consistent money loser these day, is in favor of a government take over of the student loan industry. A group of people who have shown no ability to run a successful business tend to hate success. But their reasons for doing so are not just nonsense, but total distortions of reality.

The Times writes, “The direct loans would not be handled by the government, but through colleges and universities, just as Pell grants are now.” That’s nonsense. If a student who has student loans financed via, say, Chase as I do and does not like Chase’s service, the student can go to Wells Fargo. In all cases the colleges and universities handle most of the dealings, but it is the backside of the equation the Times chooses to ignore.

The Times continues, “Some lenders say the new system would lead to more student defaults, but contracts between the government and loan-servicing companies clearly state that the companies will be evaluated partly on how successful they are at preventing defaults.” Actually, there are greater defaults under the federal direct loan program than the private loan program. In fact, I was advised at a former job to just stop paying my direct loan because nothing would happen, unlike with my privately handled loans. I still kept up my payments, but I worked with a number of people who didn’t.

I’ve also heard from friends in the credit reporting industry that credit companies routinely ignore unpaid federal direct student loans because of how the U.S. Department of Education treats students in default, i.e. they do nothing.

The Times concludes with “By redirecting the savings into a variety of federal programs aimed at needy students — including the Pell grant scholarship program — Congress would be putting the money to good use.”

Really? The Times does not define “needy” students. What about middle class students whose parents can’t afford the costs of the loan? And what about the escalating costs of college attendance? As we’ve noted before, the Democrats’ plan also calls for total debt forgiveness after 20 years and after ten years if the student goes to work for the government.

Schools would have no incentive to decrease academic costs because no matter how much a student paid — and their repayment could be no more than 10% of their income — the loan will be forgiven.

The Democrats’ plan makes no economic or financial sense. The New York Times is forced to grossly distort everything about it to make it sound the slightest bit reasonable.

Jed Babbin has the top story at Human Events today.

Yes, George W. Bush spent too much and proved redundantly that the term “big government conservative” is an oxymoron. And yes, when Bush left office our economy was in trouble.  But how long will Obama claim that the only way for our economy to recover is to continue a spending spree that will leave us unable to recover from government debt?

Apparently, forever.  In his State of the Union speech, Obama said, “One year ago, I took office amid two wars, an economy rocked by a severe recession, a financial system on the verge of collapse, and a government deeply in debt.  Experts from across the political spectrum warned that if we did not act, we might face a second depression.  So we acted — immediately and aggressively.  And one year later, the worst of the storm has passed.” 

But it hasn’t.  Unemployment is still nearly 10% and — according to Reagan administration economist Arthur Laffer — the “recovery” we are in is a false one.  With the Bush tax cuts about to expire, and both capital gains taxes and estate taxes to rise next year, we’re headed into a far worse economic crisis than we suffered last year.  But that doesn’t deter the president one bit.

That picture above is a Reuters picture from this Politico column back in September. Remember that? Democrats returned to Washington after being battered all of August over the health care plans. Barack Obama decided to rebuild their energy and so he spoke at a joint session of Congress to talk health care.

Throughout the speech he said he wanted to hear about GOP counter-proposals and repeatedly accused them of having none. Every time, congressional Republicans held up their proposals so he could see they did have counter-proposals.

Nonetheless, from that speech in September until today, Barack Obama has insisted the GOP had no proposals. He insisted the Democrats work behind closed doors and shut out the GOP.

Now, because the House Republicans gave the President a chance to improve his image at their retreat, Obama wants to sit down with Republicans at his guest house in front of TV cameras and discuss the proposals the GOP has had all along that he pretends he knew nothing about.

If Barack Obama cannot be genuine and interested in Republican ideas when the cameras are turned off, there is absolutely no way he can be genuine and sincere with the cameras turned on.

The GOP is often referred to as the stupid party. Let’s pray they aren’t stupid enough to sit down with a President who has for six months dismissed them as having no ideas. Barack Obama says he wants a bipartisan approach to health care now. Well, there is bipartisan support for scrapping the current proposals and starting over.

Unless Barack Obama says they should scrap the present plans and start over, the GOP should not entertain his invitation to use a gaggle of Republicans to rehabilitate our socialist President.

RedState Morning Briefing
For February 8, 2010

Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.

1. The god Who Makes Sure We Know He is There

2. Sarah Palin: Authentic and on the Money

3. White House Counterterrorism Chief John Brennan Tries Implicating Republicans

4. Sen. Kit Bond makes Robert Gibbs cry

5. Obama Installs Democratic Activist, Fundraiser in U.S. Attorney Post

6. Daniels Led Bayh by 10 in NRSC Poll, Not Asked to Run

7. Science, not Evangelism: India quits IPCC

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I never thought I’d live to see the day. But I kept the 4 year old up well past her bed time just in case a miracle happened.

It did.

Consider this an open thread.

Governor Sarah Palin took to the stage at the National Tea Party Convention on Saturday night and hit it out of the park. She hit all the notes perfectly. She threw in some great lines. But above all else, she proved herself authentic, sincere, and in touch with conservatives and independents.

You can see the whole speech here. As Andrew Malcolm noted, she started by recognizing Ronald Reagan’s birthday, which was the day of her speech.

Governor Palin offered a full throated endorsement of the tea party movement, a movement that has seen as much hatred and scorn from the media and both political parties’ establishments as the Governor herself.

She said, “The Republican Party would be really smart to start trying to absorb as much of the Tea Party movement as possible” and also said Republicans should not be afraid of primaries.

Here’s the thing — and it is what I mentioned the other day. Sarah Palin’s history in politics is of not a reformer in general, but of a house cleaner. She has, in every job she has held, rooted out corruption and cleaned up the place.

She said in her speech that she would support candidates dedicated to personal responsibility and the free market — kind of like the candidates RedState supports. And that means there are some Republicans who might want to watch out.

From Utah to South Carolina to Florida to Indiana via Texas, Republican races just might get real interesting soon.

Echoing a point I have made repeatedly, Governor Palin says the tea party does not need a leader. But, given her ability to unite disparate tea party groups and voices, she could help solve the problem that cropped up in Illinois where all the tea party groups went for separate candidates. That would align Governor Pain with Senator Jim DeMint as the two most powerful politicians on the right.

If Barack Obama hoped to calm people down over the panty-bomber incident, he just failed massively. Sunday morning, White House Counterterrorism Chief John Brenan tried to get the Republicans to share in the blame.

Not only did it not work, but the Republicans are coming forward to say Brennan is totally full of it and are mad as all get out.

John Brennan went on Meet the Press and told David Gregory he briefed four Republicans and then said, “I explained to them that he was in FBI custody. That Mr. Abdulmatallab was in fact talking, that he was cooperating at that point. They knew that ‘in FBI custody’ means that there’s a process then you follow as far as Mirandizing and presenting him in front of the magistrate.”

He then accused the GOP of playing politics with national security.

There is just one problem.

The four Republicans have come forward. One said the “briefing” so casual and short that it was not even on a secure phone line and reported no information not already known.

Perhaps worse for Brennan, Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) said Brennan never mentioned mirandizing the terrorist and, despite Brennan’s assumption that mirandizing the bomber was implied by saying the FBI was holding him, none of the Republicans briefed thought the White House would actually be stupid enough to do that.

Instead of making the GOP run the other way and drop the issue, the White House just waved a red flag in front of a charge bull.

Football. It’s not just America’s past time, it is an escape from the monotony of daily life, from politics, and from life’s little encumbering affairs that bog us down.

But Barack Obama will have none of it.

Like last year, this year Barack Obama made sure to disrupt the pre-game show with an interview just to make sure we all knew, if we didn’t pay attention to any of the other press conferences he has had in the past week, that he is there.

It is a bit funny. The real God is a more active, yet more invisible, presence in all of our lives, from the beating of our hearts, to the rain that wets the soil, but he does not feel the need to do press conferences every other day to make sure we know he is still in charge?

What is it with Obama that compels him to get in our faces at the times we most want to escape politics — regardless of party — to have an interview with Katie Couric. Perhaps they, both pro-abortion advocates, felt the need to subtly balance out Pam Tebow.

In the secular world, the government takes the place of God — standing in for social services in place of the church, standing in for worship in place of fixation on a deity, etc. In the third world, the Dear Leader also makes sure to put his face everywhere so all can venerate him everywhere.

Thus we become a third world nation.

I sneaked up to Nashville to scope out the “National Tea Party Convention.”

I wrote critically of the tea party convention some time ago and expressed some serious concerns that Sarah Palin was going to hurt herself unintentionally by associating with it.

I’m glad I went and saw it for myself.

To be clear: I still have concerns. I still think there were some people without the best of intentions trying to make some money off of this. The rhetoric along the lines of “since when did we oppose for profit motives” is crap when it comes to activism like this because the activism is important and lining pockets along the way detracts from that. The $550.00 fee, plus everything else, was excessive for a lot of people.

Overall though, I think a lot of the people — most of the people — involved in organizing this did in fact have the best of intentions but were the proverbial dog who caught the car. I hate to use the word “amateurs”, but that is in fact what it boils down to. These guys had no idea what they were getting themselves into.

I think branding this as a “national” tea party convention was and is a bit presumptuous given what the tea party movement is, but in my time walking around, talking to people, hearing people, and repeatedly having to defend Sarah Palin to a skeptical press, I think the convention turned out okay.

The organizers were just overwhelmed. Adding Sarah Palin to it mushroomed it.

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RedState Morning Briefing
For February 5, 2010

Go to www.RedStateMB.com to get
the Morning Briefing every morning at no charge.

Read More →

Yesterday I gave you background on Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine and why I think Republican Primary voters must unite to defeat him.

Let me give you some more today.

Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) is one of the most conservative Republicans in Congress. He is unapologetic in his demands for smaller government. He has no shame in defying Republicans leaders in Congress, routinely voting against the party and in favor of budget cutting legislation. The guy is a conservative hero in Congress.

Last year, after Georgia’s Lt. Governor dropped out of the Georgia Governor’s race, the presumption was that Lynn Westmoreland would jump into the race and become the front runner. John Oxendine started calling Westmoreland repeatedly. The calls became so regular and so harassing, Congressman Westmoreland finally had to tell Oxendine to stop calling because Westmoreland would not under any circumstance ever endorse Oxendine.

Let’s step back for just a minute.

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• Democratic Nominee Pulled Knife on Prostitute Girlfriend
  Man, thank God for Illinois. Its existence just improves Louisiana's image every single day lately.
• Miley's 9-year-old sister launching a lingerie line for kids
  I'm sure her parents are so proud. This is disgusting.

This is really disturbing.

Barack Obama has appointed Harry Knox to the White House’s Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

In March, Knox began an attack on the Catholic Church during a speech before the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign.

Knox, attacking Pope Benedict XVI directly, said the Pope and, through him the Catholic Church, is “hurting people in the name of Jesus.”

After his appointment, Knox was confronted with his comment and reaffirmed that he hates the Pope.

The Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships’ charter states that it “will work on behalf of Americans committed to improving their communities, no matter their religious or political beliefs.” Really?

A man who is willing, even with such an appointment, to attack the head of a church with millions of active congregants , cannot be trusted to fairly work with Catholics. The Pope is called the Holy Father for a reason and attacking the Holy Father does little to prove a commitment to improving communities no matter their religious or political beliefs.

The St. Michael Society has a petition calling for this man to resign. I’m Presbyterian, but I signed it too.

This man is an insult to the Christian faith when the basis for his attack on the Catholic Church is its position on homosexuality — a position shared across denominations of Christians.

We’re going to be hearing a lot about this race. It’s Human Events’ top story today.

Those who believe only Democratic incumbents are at risk in the 2010 election need look no further than Arizona.

Republican Sen. John McCain, the man who might have been president, suddenly appears vulnerable in his bid for a fourth term. A recent statewide poll conducted in January by the Behavior Research Center in Phoenix found McCain with a favorability rating of just 41 percent, his lowest numbers since 1994, when he was immersed in the Keating Five scandal.

Enter J.D. Hayworth, the former Republican congressman-turned-radio talk-show host and Tea Party champion. As Hayworth describes it, he was minding his own business, doing his talk show on KFYI-AM in Phoenix, when a Rasmussen Reports poll released at Thanksgiving showed him in a statistical dead heat in a hypothetical primary race against McCain.

Next thing he knew, the McCain campaign was running attack ads against him on his own radio station. “J.D. Hayworth,” the ads intone. “That’s not what Arizona wants.”