Barack Obama lectures the Supreme Court (and lies while doing so).  Lefties throughout the land whine about “special interest” money.  Maryland Dem chairwoman Susan Turnbull even has the gall to rail against the “Citizens United” decision.  Yet, MDDEM’s couldn’t survive without corporate and union cash.

Maryland Democrats … How’s that hypocrisy thing going?

Thanks to Red Maryland for this excellent video.

Today, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley will deliver his annual “State of the State” speech.  Brian Griffiths and Red Maryland have put together a “prebuttal” to O’Malley’s address:

Ironically, O’Malley has chosen to deliver his address on Groundhog Day.  Griffiths draws an appropriate parallel between O’Malley and the Bill Murray film Groundhog Day.  If you remember, the premise of the film is that Murray’s character lives the same day over, over, and over again.

Under O’Malley, Maryland citizens have endured the same things over, over, and over again.  We have suffered the same:

• Excuses
• Calls for Tax Increases
• Calls for Expanded Government Services

While O’Malley is expected to call for a sweeping new jobs program.  Yet, thousands of Marylanders lost their jobs because of O’Malley’s historic tax increases.  Why should our fellow citizens be expected to pay for a problem caused (in part) by the very policies O’Malley has foisted on us during the last three years?

O’Malley is expected to call for a freeze on tax increases.  IT’S AN ELECTION YEAR!  Did we expect O’Malley to hit up the taxpayers again?  Of course not.  However, we should expect a litany of tax increases NEXT YEAR if O’Malley is re-elected.  A vote for Martin O’Malley is almost surely a vote for:

• HIGHER Income Taxes
• HIGHER Sales Taxes
• HIGHER Gas Taxes
• HIGHER Alcohol Taxes
• HIGHER Cigarette Taxes

in 2011.

Griffiths is absolutely correct.  Rather than a handout to the usual special interest group (unions, public employees, etc.), Maryland citizens deserve a hand up by allowing them to keep more of what they earn.

Griffiths may be shocked to find out that the Washington Post, of all publications is in agreement with him when it comes to education.  Maryland parents and children deserve:

• School Choice
• Merit Pay
• An End to Teacher Tenure

What have we received from O’Malley and his liberal cronies?  The same rhetoric – over, over, and over again.  Griffiths is right.  We deserve better.  While Griffiths may be too young to remember, he asks the appropriate question from Ronald Reagan’s one and only debate with Jimmy Carter:

Are You Better Off Now Than You Were Four Years Ago?

We should all ask that question and then demand LEADERSHIP:

• Leadership that takes responsibility
• Leadership that does the right thing
• Leadership that spends our money wisely

Griffiths is right.  2010 is TIME FOR A CHANGE!

On Wednesday Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell delivered the GOP response to Barack Obama’s 2010 State of the Union address.  You can view the speech here:

McDonnell’s message will prove important because he expressed the ideas upon which this great nation were founded and those ideas which have made our nation the greatest on earth.  While Obama wishes to continue throwing hard earned tax dollars (and even more money borrowed from the likes of Communist China) at problems, McDonnell’s message was one of self-reliance, self-sacrifice, liberty, and innovation:

Good government policy should spur economic growth, and strengthen the private sector’s ability to create new jobs.  We must enact policies that promote entrepreneurship and innovation, so America can better compete with the world.  What government should not do is pile on more taxation, regulation, and litigation that kill jobs and hurt the middle class.  It was Thomas Jefferson who called for “A wise and frugal Government which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry ….and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned…” He was right.

Today, the federal government is simply trying to do too much.

While most Democrats and far too many Republicans seek enhanced personal and corporate power through the overreaching hand of government, McDonnell’s message was one reminiscent of Ronald Reagan:

The circumstances of our time demand that we reconsider and restore the proper, limited role of government at every level.  Without reform, the excessive growth of government threatens our very liberty and prosperity.

School choice and educational opportunity based on merit and need rather than bureaucratic fiat are cornerstones of a conservative education policy.  McDonnell used a portion of his national address to promote those ideas.  McDonnell also asserted a belief held by the vast majority of Americans, but not those in the Obama administration or a majority of Democrats in Congress – constitutional rights belong to American citizens, NOT foreign terrorists:

Americans were shocked on Christmas Day to learn of the attempted bombing of a flight to Detroit.  This foreign terror suspect was given the same legal rights as a U.S. citizen, and immediately stopped providing critical intelligence.  As Senator-elect Scott Brown says, we should be spending taxpayer dollars to defeat terrorists, not to protect them.

Americans believe in equality of opportunity.  We know that there can never be an equality of outcomes – unless we aim for the lowest common denominator.  We also know that hard working and innovative Americans, free to excel and unhindered by unnecessary government interference are what made this nation great :

Here at home government must help foster a society in which all our people can use their God-given talents in liberty to pursue the American Dream. Republicans know that government cannot guarantee individual outcomes, but we strongly believe that it must guarantee equality of opportunity for all.

That opportunity exists best in a democracy which promotes free enterprise, economic growth, strong families, and individual achievement.  Many Americans are concerned about this Administration’s efforts to exert greater control over car companies, banks, energy and health care.

Over-regulating employers won’t create more employment; overtaxing investors won’t foster more investment.  Top-down one-size fits all decision making should not replace the personal choices of free people in a free market, nor undermine the proper role of state and local governments in our system of federalism. As our Founders clearly stated, and we Governors understand, government closest to the people governs best.

McDonnell’s conclusion summed up the ideas upon which our nation was founded and became the greatest nation on earth:

Some people are afraid that America is no longer the great land of promise that she has always been. They should not be.  America will always blaze the trail of opportunity and prosperity.  America must always be a land where liberty and property are valued and respected, and innocent human life is protected.

Government should have this clear goal: Where opportunity is absent, we must create it. Where opportunity is limited, we must expand it. Where opportunity is unequal, we must make it open to everyone.

Our Founders pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to create this nation. Now, we should pledge as Democrats, Republicans and Independents–Americans all—to work together to leave this nation a better place than we found it.

Unfortunately, these ideas are foreign to the American left and far too many who claim the cloak of conservatism.  We need more leaders like McDonnell; men and women who understand AND believe in these core concepts.  What we do not need are those who merely mouth words in an attempt to gain votes and power.  McDonnell’s address should remind us of what we believe, AND of the danger posed by those who claim to represent us, but really represent themselves.

For a copy of the full text of McDonnell’s address, CLICK HERE.

President Barack Obama will be paying a visit to Baltimore Friday.  Obama is scheduled to visit an unidentified small business and address a retreat of House Republicans.  Given that Congressional Dems seem to lock the GOP out of everything meaningful going on in Congress, I thought it was mighty kind of the Republicans to invite the left’s once upon a time messiah.

I was wondering if Obama was going to hand out any “cash from his stash” while visiting Charm City.

Americans were promised a TRANSPARENT process in health care reform:

What did Americans receive?  Senate Republicans literally being locked out of the negotiations.  BRIBERY for votes from the likes of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA).  And now a secret backroom deal to reconcile the House and Senate bills.

In other words … we got OBAMACARE!

Here is a video of a FEMA official instructing police officers that Christians and our nation’s founders were TERRORISTS!

Thomas Jefferson never fired a shot in anger during the Revolutionary War.  George Washington never ordered the assassination of anyone.  YET, these people who preached LIBERTY and LIMITED GOVERNMENT are deemed TERRORISTS by some nameless, faceless government bureaucrat.

H/T:  SbyNEWS

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano just can’t seem to make up her mind.  Did the system work in stopping the Christmas airline bomber?  … or didn’t it?

It all depends on what day it is I guess.  Here’s Secretary Napolitano on Sunday:

Here’s Napolitano Monday:

"The system worked". "The system obviously didn’t work". I was taken "out of context". Passengers having to defend THEMSELVES doesn’t seem like a workable system to me … unless the Obama administration is willing to adopt "right to carry" on commercial flights.

Appearing last week on FOXNews, former Virginia Governor George Allen outlines how profligacy at the US Postal Service is simply a small example of what we’ll see under ObamaCare.

When you hand over 1/6 of the nation’s economy to a group of people with no accountability (government employees), what else do you expect.  As governor, Allen and his team forced state government to be responsive to taxpayers.  Little wonder many civil servants whined about his administration for years.  Do any of us believe that federal employees will be responsive to our health care needs?

Originally broadcast 45 years ago, Reagan’s words are as true today as they were then.  Sure, the Soviet Union has fallen (thanks to him).  Sure, tax rates are a little lower (again, thanks to him).  However, the ideas that an ex-Democrat spoke of 45 years still hold true.

With Barack Obama and a leftist-controlled Congress attempting to control every little part of our lives, NOW truly is “A Time for Choosing”.

Voting for Barack Obama in 2008 has proved to be an embarrassment for Virginians.  With just over a week to go before Virginia’s statewide elections, voters could be in for a tragedy: