I was a bit annoyed that the reporter working the DNC hit job on me didn’t bother calling me first, but then I read the dude’s bio and just felt sorry for him — the guy’s got the career trajectory of an anvil tossed out of a hot air balloon.

In any event, the Democratic National Committee sent out oppo research on me (!!!) to join Jim DeMint and me at the hip in South Carolina. This is, by the way, the same DNC that accused Eric Cantor of stoking nazism.

Democrats have seized on DeMint’s affiliation with Erickson to attack the senator. Democratic aides e-mailed links to controversial statements the blogger has made on redstate.com and in other conservative forums.

. . . .

Susan McManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, said Democrats’ linking of DeMint with Erickson is similar to Republicans’ bid last year to tie Obama to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the president’s former minister in Chicago who’d bitterly criticized the United States in fiery sermons.

Obama, though, distanced himself from Wright, while DeMint continues to use Erickson’s army of followers to reach conservative activists.

(By the way, the reporter didn’t even spell my name right.)

Rosen, the McClatchy “journalist” parroting the DNC talking points into a poorly edited story, circulated a number of things on the internets trying to tie DeMint to me. One was the rather unfortunate Souter tweet I made and another tweet was the Nobel affirmative action one, which let’s face it, just hacks the left off because it was so dead on target. But the other three things Rosen was circulating were not things I had written, but things leftists had written mischaracterizing stuff I had written. Nice! All in a day’s work for a Berkeley grad.

What is really flattering about all of this though is that I am a thirty-four year old guy in Macon, Georgia with a laptop and the Democratic National Committee is so terrified of me it has to release oppo research on me to a sympathetic Berkeley grad. That’s not just flattering, that’s awesome.

Still, it is a bit annoying to be compared to Jeremiah Wright. I’m sure it is too difficult for a Berkeley grad and a left-leaning professor from a second tier school to distinguish, but unlike Rev. Wright, I don’t hate the United States and have never made disparaging remarks about the United States.

That a reporter for McClatchy, a newspaper known to harbor anti-American sentiments and support for the terrorists against American soldiers in Iraq (see here, here, here, here, and here), and a DNC oppo researcher grasping at straws think the comparison is a good fit shows just how much the left really does hate this country — where criticism of leftwing icons and support for freedom are deemed too offensive for polite society that those views must be equated with the views of a man who actually loathes his country. The irony, of course, is that Mr. Rosen and the DNC have no problem with Jeremiah Wright at all, but know the country does.

Beyond that though, Rosen and the DNC really have no idea how Jim DeMint operates. Senator DeMint is not using my “army of followers to reach conservative activists.” He’s Jim DeMint. He doesn’t need me. But I’m happy to help. How desperate must the DNC be to mount a hit job via a sympathetic Berkeley grad tying Jim DeMint to a 34 year old blogger?!

Lastly, James Rosen and the DNC clearly do not watch the Simpsons.

We won the big statewide races yesterday, and now it’s back to work trying to win some more. The California Senate primary may not be until June, but when we’re faced with an entrenched incumbent like Barbara Boxer, we need all the lead time we can get.

Up until now, the DC types have all been supporting Carly Fiorina in our primary, even though she had not yet declared her candidacy, and had yet shown either an inability or an unwillingness to campaign to the Republican voters of this state. Thus, that early support had failed to move any dials as Assemblyman Chuck DeVore has raised money well, gained loyal grass roots support, and ran ahead of Fiorina against Boxer in polls. But now, with the fallout of Dede Scozzafava’s blowup spreading nationwide, events are moving more quickly.

The NRSC is conceding its positions in primaries, pulling a crutch out from under Fiorina’s already-limping campaign. Conservative DC types are taking advantage of the new neutrality, too, starting with Senator Jim DeMint endorsing DeVore, while Fiorina has the backing of South Carolina’s other Senator, Lindsey Graham.

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Last night, 17,000 19,298 people joined Senator Jim DeMint and me on the telephone to talk about several Senate races.

Talking Points Memo makes this the lead story this evening. And what is one of the key take aways?

Yours truly asked activists to not just donate to candidates but . . . wait for it . . . to pray for candidates too.

Scandalous.

See the screenshot of the headline, but just to clarify — it was conservative activists we were talking to.

Senator Jim DeMint just sent me the statement below on his support for Doug Hoffman. As one of the real leaders of the conservative movement in this country, DeMint speaks for many of us. I’m delighted he is, as he consistently does, putting principle over party in this case.

Senator DeMint says:

“Too often, we’re told that Republicans have to be like Democrats to be competitive in states like New York, Pennsylvania and Florida. But the truth is voters don’t want to be forced to pick between two liberals; they want a real choice. If voters want to give Washington more control over our lives, they can always vote for Democrats.

Thankfully, Doug Hoffman has stepped forward and offered voters a better choice. Doug is not running as a Republican but he stands for commonsense conservative principles that will give more freedom to New Yorkers and that’s what matters most. Doug supports lower taxes, less spending, and offering Americans more personal control in health care and education. He supports traditional marriage and will fight to protect the unborn.

America needs more people like Doug Hoffman, Pat Toomey, and Marco Rubio to run for office and bring real reform to Washington. Americans fundamentally believe in the principles of freedom and liberty, that we as individuals have the responsibility and the right to live our lives without the heavy hand of government on our shoulders. I hope voters in New York will stand with Doug Hoffman and his commitment to fight for these principles of freedom.”

By the way, all these Repubicans racing to stand behind Scozzafava because “freedom doesn’t sell well in NY-23″ and “we need a big tent” should read Jim DeMint’s Wall Street Journal op-ed:

To win back the trust of the American people, we must be a “big tent” party. But big tents need strong poles, and the strongest pole of our party — the organizing principle and the crucial alternative to the Democrats — must be freedom. The federal government is too big, takes too much of our money, and makes too many of our decisions. If Republicans can’t agree on that, elections are the least of our problems.

(Via Dan Collins of POWIP) Senator Jim DeMint (R, SC) is back from Honduras - despite the best efforts of the Democrats to stop him from going - and he’s unkind about what has been pretty obviously an attempt by the American government to admit that we made a mistake and picked the wrong side of the Honduras issue:

[American policy re: the Zelaya ouster] was set in a snap decision the day Mr. Zelaya was removed from office, without a full assessment of either the facts or reliable legal analysis of the constitutional provisions at issue. Three months later, it remains in force, despite mounting evidence of its moral and legal incoherence.

[snip]

In a day packed with meetings, we met only one person in Honduras who opposed Mr. Zelaya’s ouster, who wishes his return, and who mystifyingly rejects the legitimacy of the November elections: U.S. Ambassador Hugo Llorens.

When I asked Ambassador Llorens why the U.S. government insists on labeling what appears to the entire country to be the constitutional removal of Mr. Zelaya a “coup,” he urged me to read the legal opinion drafted by the State Department’s top lawyer, Harold Koh. As it happens, I have asked to see Mr. Koh’s report before and since my trip, but all requests to publicly disclose it have been denied.

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(Via Jen Rubin) Let’s review (I almost did this using an extended metaphor of a fencing match, but I didn’t want actual fencers wincing):

• Sen. John Kerry is the Democratic point man in Foreign Relations for this administration’s messed-up Honduras policy.  He is, in fact, the Foreign Relations chair… which tells you how seriously the Democrats take this committee (i.e., they don’t).
• Sen. Jim DeMint is the Republican determined to wreck Sen. Kerry’s day - both on this administration’s messed-up Honduras policy, and on general principles.
• This administration has a messed-up Honduras policy.
• DeMint therefore slaps a couple of Senatorial holds on some State Department appointments until the administration stops messing up on Honduras policy.
• Kerry responds by denying DeMint the plane that he’d need to go down to Honduras and see for himself how messed up our Honduras policy is.  This is one of those steps that prudent Senate chairs usually don’t take, because it makes it easier for it to happen again, and nobody controls Congress forever.
• DeMint talks to Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell.
• McConnell talks to the Pentagon.
• The Pentagon is, of course, filled with people who didn’t come back from Vietnam and promptly announce that we were worse than the Mongol Horde.  Which is to say, people not like Kerry.
• The Pentagon gives Kerry the Hawaiian good-luck symbol, and DeMint a plane.  DeMint may now go to Honduras and see how messed up our policy is down there.
• DeMint then links this mess to the State Department.
• The State Department promptly disavows themselves of this mess.
• So: Kerry establishes a precedent, doesn’t accomplish his goal of keeping our messed-up Honduras policy off the radar, and doesn’t even get the State Department backing him up.  For a Democrat, that takes skill.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what one motivated Senator can do to mess up another Senator’s day.

Moe Lane

PS: Bear this in mind when the reconciliation question comes up regarding the Democrats’ messed-up health care rationing bill.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Senator Bunning (R-KY) is offering legislation to require all bills be put on the internet for at least 72 hours in final form before being voted on in the Senate.

The Senate Conservatives Fund, an organization near and dear to my heart (have you given them money?), has a petition on this that you should sign.

From the petition:

The town hall meetings in August uncovered a nasty little secret in Washington: Members of Congress don’t actually read their bills!! If you’re tired of politicians sticking you with the consequences of bills they haven’t read, sign our National Read the Bill Petition.

Senator Jim Bunning (R-KY) is preparing legislation that will require bills to be scored by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and posted online at least 72 hours before they can be considered by the Senate or any Senate committee. This will leave Members of Congress with no excuse for failing to read their bills and it will give the public time to express their views before legislation is passed.

I’ve been meaning to give praise to Mitch McConnell since last week when he began voting against appropriations measures coming out of the Senate. This is a rare thing for McConnell, who normally sides with the appropriators.

But he stood up and voted no last week, siding with the Senate conservatives. It was a bold move worthy of praise.

Something has happened this week too. McConnell did it again. He sided with Jim DeMint and California farmers against a small fish.

What is pathetic and sad is that both Barbara Boxer and Lamar Alexander sided with the fish over the farmers.

Jim DeMint offered up an amendment to the Department of Interior’s budget appropriations to sidestep stupid environmental studies about a minnow that a judge used to stop water flow in California’s Central Valley, where 50% of the US fruits and veggies are grown.

Senator Feinstein called DeMint’s amendment “a kind of Pearl Harbor.”

California’s Senators would rather their farmers be unemployed and crops left to die of thirst than stop a judge from siding with a minnow. Both Boxer and Feinstein sided with the minnow over the farmers.

Lamar Alexander sided with them.

That’s the funny thing about the United States Senate. Too many senators side with their fellow senators instead of constituents. The fraternity of appropriators in the Senate is a stronger bond than a Senator to his constituents. The people of Tennessee now know where Lamar Alexander’s loyalties lie.

And the people of California know that its Senators would rather save a non-voting fish, than voting, working farmers. Chuck Devore should be able to exploit this one.

The media was all too quick to play up a memo written by some guy in Connecticut on how to show up at Democrat townhall meetings to disrupt them.

Will the media do the same when the left does it.

This left-wing blog is organizing a disruption of Senator Jim DeMint’s townhall meeting in Myrtle Beach on August 19th.

The website contains an indication that the blogger is part of Barack Obama’s Organizing for America” and refers people to Heath Care for America NOW! for “resources, talking points, and facts.” He’s also a member of the United Steelworkers Local 7898.

Among the other things suggested to left-wing activists is

Bring more signs and leaflets, and whenever possible, post your signs all over the place so that you visually out-perform the other side. Make sure you have people holding signs in every place where a TV camera is likely to be and that next to every right wing sign, there’s one of your signs with your message.

Also,

Line up a number of people who feel comfortable interrupting and prepare them with statements like:

• Excuse me, I came today to listen to Representative XXX explain how this bill is going to make health care more affordable for me and my family. We’re being gouged by insurance companies that just want to make more profits while we struggle to keep up with premiums and co-pays. Representative, how are you going to fix that?”
• “I’m retired and can’t afford my prescription drugs because I’m on a fixed income. Representative, how is this bill going to affect me?”
• “I want to hear the Representative speak. He’s the one voting on the bill. Representative, how will this bill help people who already have insurance at work?”
• “What I’m worried about is how we’re going to keep the insurance companies from continuing to charge people more for being sick and keep them from taking away coverage when we need it most. What’s the plan for that?”

The media extensively covered the memo from the small Connecticut group no one had ever heard of before. Will the media cover the left actually organizing to disrupt a specific townhall meeting?

This weekend, 200 RedStaters gathered together in Atlanta to hear from real conservative leaders and candidates.

We were specific in our invitations — we wanted conservatives, not just Republicans. The message was phenomenal. The time shared was outstanding.

But now we have work to do. We cannot return to our former ways. We must commit to continuous activity on behalf of these outstanding men and women.

If you live in their area, help them. Volunteer. If you don’t live near them, consider opening your checkbook or pulling out your credit card.

We can take back the GOP. We can win on a message of small government. But we have to step up and help.

Each person listed below paid their own way to spend time with RedState activists in Atlanta. This was not a gathering for you to hear from them, but for them to hear from you. And they did hear from you.

Now let them hear from you again — volunteer, talk to your friends, donate, do whatever you can to help them in their elections.

• Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) Candidate for the United States Senate
• Former Congressman Pat Toomey (R-PA) Candidate for the United States Senate
• Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)
• Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX)
• Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) Chairman, Republican Study Committee
• Hon. Karen Handel (R-GA) Georgia’s Secretary of State & Candidate for Governor
• Liz Cheney (okay, she’s not a candidate, but she should be)
• Ken Cuccinelli (R-VA) Virginia State Senator & Candidate for Virginia Attorney General
• Michael Williams (R-TX) Texas Railroad Commissioner, Candidate for the United States Senate
• Marco Rubio (R-FL) Former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, Candidate for the United States Senate
• Ted Cruz (R-TX) Texas Solicitor General, Candidate for Texas Attorney General
• Nikki Haley (R-SC) Member, South Carolina House of Representatives, Candidate for Governor

Imagine a United States Senate with Michael Williams, Pat Toomey, and Marco Rubio. Imagine a Supreme Court hearing from Ken Cuccinelli and Ted Cruz on states’ rights. And imagine having two ladies like Karen Handel and Nikki Haley slashing goverment bugets and taxes from their respective Governors’ Mansions.

We can make all that a reality.

As you can tell, we’ve been away and busy at the RedState Gathering.

Liz Cheney spoke. She was amazing.

“America needs a commander in chief,” she said, ” not a global community organizer.”

Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Nikki Haley, Michael Williams, Ken Cuccinelli, Karen Handel, Tom Price, Pat Toomey, Roy Blunt, Jim DeMint, and Rick Perry all joined us in person or via video.

It was an amazing time. Stand by for lots of video and pictures.

Via @AmandaCarpenter here (and a related thought here) and Hot Air: how the Washington Post chooses to symbolize the opposition (currently somewhere around 53%) to the proposed Democratic health care bill.

Senator Demint with a sniper rifle.

This was… vile… of them.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

We have the power to stop Barack Obama on healthcare. We have the power to shut him down.

Already, Democrats are recognizing the measure is coming apart at the seams. Nancy says she has the votes, but the markup of the bill in committee keeps getting cancelled.

Tonight, Barack Obama goes on television to complain, beg, and cajole the American people to commit themselves to a system that will decrease our life expectancy, decrease the quality of our healthcare, and increase our deficit to even higher levels than Obama has already caused.

As a distraction, Obama is slugging Jim DeMint for calling the healthcare debate Obama’s “Waterloo.” The problem is, Democrats are admitting to Republicans that Obama does recognize it is his Waterloo moment.

Grassley said he spoke with a Democratic House member last week who shared Obama’s bleak reaction during a private meeting to reports that some factions of House Democrats were lining up to stall or even take down the overhaul unless leaders made major changes.

“Let’s just lay everything on the table,” Grassley said. “A Democrat congressman last week told me after a conversation with the president that the president had trouble in the House of Representatives, and it wasn’t going to pass if there weren’t some changes made … and the president says, ‘You’re going to destroy my presidency.’ “

The question now, for people like Charles Grassley, is why even bother? Let’s crush the Democrats on this issue.

Jim DeMint, on a conference call the other day, said healthcare is Barack Obama’s Waterloo. If healthcare fails, Obama is broken.

Jake Tapper reports the White House intends to use that comment to rally its troops in the healthcare fight.

Officials will say the people being “broken” are the American people going bankrupt paying for health insurance premiums that increase 10 percent every year, the source says, and that those who want to use this issue to break the president are doing nothing but working for insurance companies and insurance executives.

Um, actually Barry and Rahm, the American people are broke now because of your spending. And we cannot afford more.

It is laughably outrageous that Barack Obama would dare say health insurance is driving Americans to bankruptcy when the very plan he proposes would bankrupt the entire country.

Irony with Barack Obama knows no bounds.

Just the other day, Barack Obama said , “I will not sign on to any health plan that adds to our deficits over the next decade. And by helping improve quality and efficiency, the reforms we make will help bring our deficits under control in the long term.”

Yet, every single Democrat proposal compounds the deficit to such a massive degree that the CBO has not had time to do all the math and its latest numbers are subject to further change.

See, for example, this press report:

“The $1 trillion plan, which was unveiled on Tuesday, “would result in a net increase in the federal budget deficit of $239 billion over the 2010-2019 period,” according to a report submitted to Congress by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation.”

The American people are broke. It is not the insurance companies that did. It’s Obama’s out of control spending.

While I agree with Ed Morrissey that seeing Senator Jim DeMint make Senator Kay Hagan admit several times that there was a double standard in the way that they killed his call for a GAO audit of the Federal Reserve (a very popular House initiative) while not applying the same rule to their own pet clauses, I also agree that it was prefaced by what some might consider somewhat dry (but necessary) exposition. So here’s a cut-down version:

Very quickly: Sen DeMint of South Carolina is trying to put in an amendment calling for an audit of the Federal Reserve into a bill, so that it can be voted on. Senator Nelson of Nebraska promptly pops up and calls for the amendment to be removed, as not being germane: Senator Hagan of North Carolina promptly approves that call. DeMint then goes on to mention specific other clauses that would also apply, in order to get Hagan to a) admit that they fall under the same rule and b) highlight the fact that they won’t be removed, too. The fact that I think that this is funny no doubt says awful things about my sense of humor, after going on eight years being involved in following politics; but it never hurts to highlight hypocrisy.

We will now pause for the inevitable “You guys were just as bad!” ‘response,’ which is of course a code phrase for I must immediately attack anything that threatens to destroy my faith in the inherent virtue of the Democratic Party. Given recent polling, I have hopes for some truly entertaining exercises in denial.

Moe Lane

PS: Senator DeMint will be at the RS Gathering, by the way.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

This week, Senator Jim DeMint will give his reply to Obamacare and it is sure to be a conservative reply as he is being backed by several stalwartly conservative organizations in the effort.

Groups like Americans for Tax Reform, Media Research Center, Americans for Prosperity, Conservatives for Patients’ Rights and Tea Party Patriots will all stand behind Senator DeMint’s presentation in the Cannon Building in the House Budget Committee Hearing room on the Hill this Wednesday at noon.

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In what I can only believe is coordination with the Senate GOP Leadership because everyone is on the exact same talking point, I am more than a little disappointed with the wailing and gnashing of teeth coming from the Republican commentariat.

The other day, Senator Jim DeMint told Arlen Specter that DeMint would be backing Toomey. Somehow he is to blame for Specter jumping to his natural party. Nevermind that Specter’s staff says it is because Specter can’t win a Republican primary.

And it is not just that. Everyone from Ramesh Ponnuru to Michael Barone to the Wall Street Journal is collectively wringing their hands about the selfish conservatives and Club for Growth wanting to remain an ideologically pure minority party that can’t win the majority because it shuts out squishes.

That’s garbage and they should know it.

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I don’t think that Jim DeMint necessarily has Barack Obama’s political fortunes in mind when he advises him to fire Tim Geithner, but it’s good advice anyway.

In Washington D.C., it’s not hard to predict what usually happens to a politician in Geithner’s place. Several Republicans have called for him to resign; more will. The press will begin to ask many Democrats what they think. Several of them are clearly not far from calling for a resignation as well; one will before long. That will be the signal that Geithner is near the end of the road.

Obama still has a very ambitious agenda that depends on his Treasury Secretary. There’s health care reform, the budget, cap-and-trade, a resolution for GM and Chrysler, and more efforts to stabilize banks. Administration officials are still saying that Congress is likely to need to approve more money for that bailout. That ship has probably already sailed, but at the very least it’s impossible to imagine Geithner getting it approved. The sooner Obama cuts his losses, the better.

Although Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) won a vote renouncing The Fairness Doctrine 87-11 last week (see the post for more details),  Senator Dick Durbin won a vote on a measure that has the potential to stifle free speech and destroy conservative talk radio on a 57-41 vote.  A Durbin Amendment to implement a different regulatory roadmap for the FCC to stifle talk radio was passed during Senate consideration of a bill to provide a vote in the House of Representatives to the District of Columbia.  The vote on the Durbin measure is an interesting case study on how the left is working attack conservative talk radio through what I call the Son of the Fairness Doctrine. 

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Kudos to Senators John Ensign (R-NV), John Thune (R-SD), Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Jim DeMint (R-SC) for using the bill to provide a vote in the House of Representatives to the District of Columbia to force votes today on expanding gun rights and trashing the idea of the federal government regulating the radio airwaves.  These senators used an unconstitutional bill to essentially treat the District of Columbia as a state to force votes on guns and free speech.

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