It is looking more and more like Rand Paul is going to make it through the Kentucky GOP Primary. There is a great article out today that I encourage you to read if you are on the fence.

Grayson has attacked Rand Paul as being in favor of abortion and legalizing drugs, perhaps confusing Rand’s positions with those of his even-more-libertarian father. Rand Paul calls the claims patently false. His Web site declares that “Rand’s socially conservative views have earned the respect and trust of church leaders across Kentucky.”

Rand Paul is also more mainstream conservative on national defense. Rand is an interventionist, unlike his father, who believes the U.S. should not send troops to global hot spots. And Rand thinks Guantanamo prisoners should be tried in military courts, while his father has suggested civilian courts.

I support Rand Paul and right now he is 15 points ahead of Grayson — a man who still refuses to take positions on big issues.

Tom Harkin, Barack Obama, and assorted left-wing activists are asking a simple question this week as if it is the most profound question ever asked:

“If Republicans are so sure passing health care reform will doom the Democrats in November, why not help them pass it?”

If you ask this question without any sense of irony, you have so far removed yourself from reality that we might need to commit you.

Let me ask it another way — if the Democrats were so sure the War in Iraq would doom Republicans, why not go all in and help escalate the war?

Because lives are at stake? Is that why? Well, same with the GOP helping the Democrats pass health care. We don’t want the blood on our hands.

We will not help pass bad legislation just because it helps us politically. There are greater things at stake such as freedom, individual liberty, and the American ideal. The free market system should be above politics.

The GOP will not help the Democrats pass health care reform because passing health care reform will mean destroying the country. And that is not hyperbole, that is a fact.

• After success of 'Demon Sheep' ad, Fiorina's new ad slams Barbara Boxer
  Who says the Demon Sheep ad was a "success"? Maybe for comedy writers.
• Huff-Watch
  Someone is reading HuffPo so you don't have to.

On December 13th, I told you guys my wife and I were making a leap of faith.

I often question my faith. There are some days I wake up and don’t feel very Christian. There are some days I wake up and go the whole day without really even appreciating all that God has done. Prayer becomes rote and routine, a habit done before I can fall asleep, but without much meaning and often times a burden to be overcome before I can sleep. Nothing more — and then the guilt for thinking it so.

But these last three months have made me appreciate both God and you. Your prayers have sustained my family. They have comforted us. Many, many people have emailed me to tell me how much that post meant to them personally.

Because of that more than anything else, I would be remiss if I did not now share with you, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story.

Read More →

Precisely.

SOURCE.

Outstanding news. Bob Bennett just suffered his first defeat in the Utah race.

Incumbent U.S. Sen. Bob Bennett has suffered his first defeat of any kind in his hotly contested inter-party race for re-election.

At Friday night’s Cache County Republican Lincoln Day dinner, Bennett, who is finishing his third term as a senator from Utah, failed to get 40 percent of the 255 votes cast in a straw poll.

Bennett received 97 votes, finishing in second place to Mike Lee, who had 102. Tim Bridgewater finished third in the poll with 44 votes, Merrill Cook received six votes, Cherilyn Eagar had five and one vote was cast for no particular candidate.

The vote is symbolic in that at the Utah Republican Convention, a candidate needs 60 percent of the vote to skip a primary election. 62 percent of the votes cast Friday night were not for Bennett.

(SOURCE)

Bennett has thus far failed to get over 60% anywhere.

• Not Just A Dictator . . .
  Short and terrific post by Pejman on Hugo Chavez.

Gary Bauer has the top story at Human Events.

I’ve spent the last week traveling across Israel as part of a delegation from Christians United for Israel (CUFI). I’ve had individual meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Ehud Barak, President Shimon Peres, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and others. As always, it has been an eye opening experience.

Vice President Joe Biden also spent the past few days in Israel, consorting with many of the same leaders I met with, visiting some of the same historic sites and perhaps walking many of the same streets in Jerusalem and elsewhere. But what he seems to have missed on his trip is at the heart of the troubles that the Obama administration is having in the Middle East.

Despite having similar itineraries, Biden and I come to strikingly different conclusions about America’s relationship with Israel, and what it will take to resolve the world’s most intractable conflict. The vice president (and the administration he works for) treats Israel as the primary obstacle to peace in the Middle East. They seem blind to the Islamic fundamentalist who want Israel and the U.S. wiped off the map. But I regard the Jewish state as a lonely outpost of Western Civilization deserving and in dire need of our unwavering support.  

Biden’s trip has been dominated by controversy over new settlements. The Israeli government this week revealed plans to build 1,600 new housing units in response to a housing shortage in an Orthodox community of East Jerusalem.

As I sometimes do, I am filling in on the radio again this morning here in Macon from 6am to 9am ET.

You can listen live here.

The call in number is 478-742-0940.

Consider this an open thread.

RedState Morning Briefing
For March 12, 2010

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

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I’m getting word that Senator Harry Reid’s wife and daughter have been in a very serious car wreck.

It’s one thing to take shots as the man as a politician, but right now we should be praying for him and his family.

Tim Stewart worked for Bob Bennett as a legislative assistant for seven years. In 1999, Stewart left Bennett’s office to work for Fannie Mae in Utah. Bob Bennett’s son joined Stewart working for Fannie Mae.

In 2006, Bennett’s former chief of staff, Chip Yost, left Bennett’s office to become a lobbyist. Guess who his client is? Fannie Mae.

Tim Stewart moved back to DC a few years ago and and continued lobbying for Fannie Mae until the government created the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune on September 19, 2008:

“Congress is facing heavy criticism for its oversight, which the White House, presidential candidates and financial experts have said was lacking. This is especially true about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae - they were government-sponsored, private entities under direct government regulations to help keep capital flowing through the financial markets. With their collapse, they are now part of the U.S. government, bringing all of their debt with them. Bennett, who received more campaign contributions from Freddie and Fannie than any other Republican over the last 20 years, said: ‘They obviously got too big and carried too much risk.’”

This is similar to Bennett’s relationship with TARP recipients, which I’ll get into tomorrow.

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  Ugh.
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  Great government reform!

The folks at My Food. My Choice bring us word tonight of another instance of politicians not knowing the limits of government.

New York Assemblyman Felix Ortiz (D-Brooklyn) wants to ban the use of salt in preparation of restaurant cooking.

You know salt right? Sodium Chloride? It’s one of the tastes our tongue can detect and it helps bring out other flavors? Yeah, that one — the one that brought us the word “salad”, which came from the Roman Empire habit of putting salt on leafy vegetables.

What an idiot.

Media Matters and the leftist crowd out there took me on last year when I asked, in relation to a report from Washington State that people were crossing state lines to buy dishwasher detergent after Washington State banned phosphates, “at what point do people revolt?”

They tried to make it out as a lunatic question to ask, but more and more people are getting really hacked off by the small burdens imposed on them by out of touch government. The accumulation of small things — the tyranny of small things — will be what decent and calm people eventually blow up over.

At what point do people go back to tarring and feathering politicians? It is stupid little things like this that will do it. Remember, the Brits thought the Stamp Act was a rather innocuous piece of legislation too.

At least this hasn’t been put into law. We can hope it stays that way.

From Friday, September 17, 2010, to Sunday, September 19, 2010, the RedState Gathering is on.

We’ll be in downtown Austin, TX this year.

Here’s how registration shapes up:

Early bird: $30.00 until April 15, 2010
Tax increase: $50.00 until August 1, 2010
Summer heat: $99.00 until registration closes on September 10th.

We’ve reserved a hotel with a $125.00 per night room rate, with most meals included and free internet for everyone attending.

Austin is a fun place — a great place to grab a beer, meet a politician, have some barbecue, and plot all things related to the greater Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

Use this link to register for the RedState Gathering 2010.

As I sometimes do, I am filling in on the radio this morning here in Macon from 6am to 9am ET.

You can listen live here.

The call in number is 478-742-0940.

Consider this an open thread.

RedState Morning Briefing
For March 11, 2010

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

Read More →

On August 3, 2009, Bob Bennett voted against an amendment that prohibited $17.5 million from being spent for the High Energy Cost Grant Program, which was targeted even by the Obama Administration as wasteful and redundant. Sen. Hatch voted the same way. (SOURCE).

On March 13, 2008, Bennett voted against reducing FY 2009 funding by $750 million on programs rated “ineffective” by the OMB. The savings would be used to pay down the debt. (SOURCE).

On October 23, 2007, Bob Bennett voted to kill an amendment that would have eliminated $3.7 million in uncompetitive earmarks to the AFL-CIO, and replaced them with competitive grants. (SOURCE).

And these only scratch the surface.

I missed this report from last week and it is totally worth highlighting.

Because of the Christmas Day panty bomber and all the other threats and nonsense the Islamofascists are throwing at us, the TSA intends to make us all start walking through full body scanners where TSA agents will be able to see us in all our nekkid glory.

Except the Council on Islamic Relations objected. So now the TSA looks like it is going to carve out a total exception for muslims so no muslim will be subjected to a full body scanner.

Thanks bureaucracy!

Here’s a dirty little secret in American politics. A lot of the reporters who cover politics don’t know the first thing about politics. They cannot read the tea leaves. They do not know how. They do not even try.

That is why men like Larry Sabato, Chuck Todd, etc. have become so prominent. It is not hard to figure things out, but a lot of reporters are lazy. They need the story spoon fed to them.

There is a massive story out there right now and the political reporters have totally missed it. Let me spoon feed them and educate everyone in the process.

Barack Obama has become the first major Democrat to admit, though tacitly, the Democrats are screwed in 2010.

All you have to do is look to Missouri.

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