Conservative Rumblings

He defeated Katon Dawson 91-77 on the sixth ballot.

Some speech highlights:

“To Americans who believe in the future of this country…to those who stand in difference with us. It’s time for something completely different. We’re gonna bring this party to every corner, to every boardroom, to every community, and we’re gonna say to every friend and foe alike, we want you to be a part of us, and to those of you who wish to obstruct…get ready to get knocked over.” - Michael Steele

“We stand proud as the conservative party of the United States.” - Michael Steele

“We will cede no ground to anyone on matters of principle.” - Michael Steele

“God bless you and God bless our party.” - Michael Steele

He can’t possibly be worse than Duncan’s disastrous reign. He just needs to get off his “let’s apologize for Katrina” bandwagon and change his gun control stance and he’ll be a pretty dang good chairman.

Time to start the rebuilding process and take back the House in 2010!

Foregone conclusion, but still hilarious to see.

Illinois senators stripped Rod Blagojevich of power Thursday in the final act of a political drama filled with twists and turns that will likely end Blagojevich’s political career and hand the reins of state government over to Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn.

Senators voted unanimously to convict Blagojevich, 59-0. The outcome was never in doubt. In fact, Quinn went to the state Capitol earlier in the day in preparation of being sworn in immediately after the vote.

Full story.

A Democratic spending plan just wouldn’t be a spending plan without a bunch of money for special interest groups and idiotic government subsidies.

When Congress opens up a gusher of money, every special interest in the country reaches for a bucket. And as lawmakers negotiate an economic stimulus bill that so far is expected to cost more than $800 billion, the scenario is no different.

The House passed its version of the bill Wednesday evening, and a host of oddball recipients from ATV riders to TV viewers preparing for the digital conversion stand to benefit.

But critics question why such narrowly tailored add-ons — which have little, if any, prospect of creating large numbers of new jobs — are in an emergency bill aimed at stimulating the economy and creating jobs.

“The stimulus bill delivers on a lot of promises that Democrats have made over the past decade to special interest groups,” said William Beach, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis. “This is their time to kind of bring home the bacon.”

Bingo. This bill has nothing to do with economic stimulus. It has to do with cronyism and kickbacks, as the liberals try to spread the wealth out to all corners of the progressive liberal movement.

Among the funding measures included in the proposal are $25 million for new ATV trails; $400 million for the National Endowment for the Arts; $400 million for global warming research; $335 million for the Centers for Disease Control to combat sexually-transmitted diseases; and $650 million coupons to subsidize TV viewers for digital television conversion.

New. ATV. Trails.

Endowment for the Arts.

Global….warming…research.

No wonder the GOP plan would have made more jobs. You could feed the entire population of the world for a year with the amount of pork in here.

The House of Representatives approved an $819 billion economic stimulus package Wednesday that President Obama has said is necessary to revive the economy.

The final vote was 244-188, mostly along party lines as expected.

The legislation includes an estimated $544 billion in federal spending and $275 billion in tax cuts for individuals and businesses. It includes money for highway construction and mass transit.

The Senate is working on a costlier version of the bill.

Democratic congressional leaders practically declared victory Wednesday afternoon — ahead of the vote.

The massive recovery package has stirred consternation among Republicans who say their ideas are not being adequately considered. But Democrats have a comfortable majority in the House and stressed that fact in a talk with reporters.

The GOP tried quite hard to get their plan in, but the Democratic stranglehold prevented them from doing much, despite the fact that it was a far better bill.

Meanwhile, House Republican leaders were standing firm in their opposition to the stimulus plan. Just ahead of the House vote, they insisted that their own plan, focusing on tax relief, would create twice as many new jobs — 6.2 million — as the plan Obama is pushing, while costing about half as much.

But the House defeated their plan Wednesday with a vote of 286-170.

House Minority Leader John Boehner said Republicans remain “disappointed” in the stimulus plan coming to a vote. He says it includes a “lot of wasteful spending that won’t create jobs.”

He says the GOP plan for “fast-acting tax relief” would “create jobs and preserve jobs in America.”

Our children’s children will be paying for this bill. As Mike Pence (R-IN) said, “The only thing this bill will stimulate is more government and more debt.”

Far from rolling over, House Republican leaders are trying to win concessions from President Obama over the massive economic stimulus package and have proffered a bill of their own to put on the negotiating table.

The counter-package would shift focus entirely from spending to tax relief. Though a full House vote on the Democratic package is expected in a matter of hours and President Obama said he’s confident it will pass, GOP lawmakers are hoping their substitute proposal at least influences the final product.

Full story.

Tax Cuts: The Original (and still the best) Stimulus.

Normally, I would be viciously shredding anything Feingold came up with. I mean, come on, it’s Feingold for God’s sake.

Stunningly, however, I agree with him on this:

Russ Feingold is introducing a Constitutional amendment to end Senate appointments by state governors, following Burris/Blago and Paterson/Kennedy/Gillibrand:

His release:

“The controversies surrounding some of the recent gubernatorial appointments to vacant Senate seats make it painfully clear that such appointments are an anachronism that must end. In 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution gave the citizens of this country the power to finally elect their senators. They should have the same power in the case of unexpected mid term vacancies, so that the Senate is as responsive as possible to the will of the people. I plan to introduce a constitutional amendment this week to require special elections when a Senate seat is vacant, as the Constitution mandates for the House, and as my own state of Wisconsin already requires by statute. As the Chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee, I will hold a hearing on this important topic soon.”

Of course it should be the vote of the people; that seems almost elementary. One good proposal doesn’t take back all the bad garbage he’s done over the years, but I side with him this one time.

Anyone who has watched one of Blago’s recent press conferences knows he’s off his rocker. Quoting British poets, parading homeless people across the stage and vehemently asserting that he got a new liver for a kid that had a kidney problem are only a small glimpse at his lunacy. Add in his most recent declaration of innocence where he spent 10 minutes talking about cowboys and horse thieves, and you have yourself one crazy governor.

Illinois State Rep. Mark Kirk agrees:

Governor Rod Blagojevich could be removed from office by the end of the week.

Some members of the Illinois General Assembly now say the governor’s decision not to present a defense will likely speed up the impeachment trial that begins Monday.

The governor’s recent call for changes to the rules for the proceedings and his media tour have some state lawmakers wondering about his motives.

“He’s gone insane. He has decided that he’s only got a couple of days left in office and he’s gonna go out in a blaze of misguided glory,” said Republican Rep. Mark Kirk of Chicago’s north suburbs.

Of course, if you ask Blagojevich, it’s all one big, crazy conspiracy to remove him from office and raise taxes.

Illegal immigration was completely forgotten this election cycle. After the primaries, you rarely saw Obama or McCain even mention the issue (most likely because they had the same stance on it).

Thankfully, DHS was still moving on it, building the border fence along the Mexican border (which is slated to be completed this month).

Now, open borders advocates are lobbying Obama to halt the construction of the fence.

Open border advocates and some in Congress are urging President Barack Obama to stop construction of the 670-mile fence along the Mexican border (which, by the way, was to have been completed this month).

American citizens, during the congressional debate on immigration in 2007, emphatically informed their congressmen and senators in no uncertain terms that they wanted a fence built along our southern border, and they wanted that fence built without delay.

During the recent presidential elections, the illegal immigration crisis was downplayed by both major party presidential candidates and virtually ignored by the elite media and pundits. Many “Washington political experts” stated that illegal immigration was no longer an issue.

Oh, it is most definitely still an issue. We’ve forgotten it amid socialism bailout schemes, tax increases, declarations of defeat to Al Qaeda and other ridiculous happenings, but it is still an issue.

What’s funny is that the Washington elite and the MSM don’t speak for the people:

But according to a recent Rasmussen Reports national survey, most Americans support the continued construction of a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border and the use of the military if necessary in border areas.

Sixty percent say the government should continue to build the fence, while 26 percent disagree and 13 percent are undecided.

The open border anti-fence activists are emboldened because Arizona’s Gov. Janet Napolitano — recently confirmed as Obama’s choice for secretary of Homeland Security — is perceived to be one of them and may try to halt or further delay construction of the $2 billion border barrier.

Are you kidding me? Did Bush tell people to not listen to Franken or Olberman or the Huffington Post? Of course not. The point of the First Amendment is that people have the freedoms to say what they want and listen to who they want. Obama, of course, doesn’t really believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights since he thinks it doesn’t do enough to “share the wealth.” So what does he care?

President Obama warned Republicans on Capitol Hill today that they need to quit listening to radio king Rush Limbaugh if they want to get along with Democrats and the new administration.

“You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done,” he told top GOP leaders, whom he had invited to the White House to discuss his nearly $1 trillion stimulus package.

Comrade Obama is already starting to stretch his communist legs. How dare he think that he has the right to tell people who they should or should not listen to.

That wasn’t the most derisive comment of the day…

That wasn’t Obama’s only jab at Republicans today.

While discussing the stimulus package with top lawmakers in the White House’s Roosevelt Room, President Obama shot down a critic with a simple message.

“I won,” he said, according to aides who were briefed on the meeting. “I will trump you on that.”

justin_hart on Twitter had the best comment on this:

Obama recap: Day 1 was wonderful. Day 2 internal fumbles, press angst. Day 3 No questions on lobbyists. Day 4 I won, get out of my way

So much for Obama’s “working together” theory or his “bipartisan” platform that doesn’t involve all this bickering back and forth. Four days, and his true colors are showing. Anyone brave enough to consider what he’s going to be like in four years?

After the train wreck of Caroline Kennedy, anyone more articulate than a grizzly bear could probably have been an improvement. Obviously the seat wasn’t going to be filled by a conservative, but this is one of the better picks that Paterson could have made. If you check out Gillibrand’s profile on On The Issues, most of her policy positions are rated as +2s or -2s on a 5-point scales. She’s not ‘extreme’ except in a couple of areas, and one those is gun control, which she strongly OPPOSES:

If Mr. Paterson was hoping to quiet the tumult over the selection process by picking Ms. Gillibrand, there were indications that he may not get his wish. Ms. Gillibrand, who has been endorsed by the National Rifle Association, is controversial among some of the party’s more liberal leaders downstate.

The Far Left has to be losing their collective minds over the last couple of months. After watching their Savior keep Bush’s Secretary of Defense Robert Gates around and then appoint 4-star General James Jones NSA adviser, now they have an NRA-endorsed Senator going to Congress to fill The Hilldabeast’s empty seat.