The most obvious features of recent political and financial “solutions” are their staggering complexity and their failure to fix what’s broken. The first leads to the second. Consider the healthcare “reform,” thousands of pages of mind-numbing complexity which slathers on thick layers of bureaucratic control on a system which already costs twice as much per capita as competing developed-world systems.

– Charles Hugh Smith Of Two Minds.

ObamaCare was created to improve the health and well being of the American….bureaucracy. Like the failed Waxman-Markey Act and the proposed tax hikes to balance the budget, this piece of legislation serves to subinfeudate what the so-called elite of Washington, DC view as an ungrateful and unwashed mob of moral pygmies in the Flyover Wastes between New York and San Francisco. Yet the unintended consequences of ObamaCare’s passage are far worse than even the dishonest and nefarious intent of the bill.

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From Mike Allen’s Playbook in the Politico today comes this quote from a “top Democrat”:

“The press will obsess about [today's House] vote [on the Boehner Two-Step], but at best it is an exercise in political machismo, at worst it is the beginning of the most irresponsible act in Congressional history. The House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate — at least 58 senators are on record saying they won’t support it. That’s worse than Ryan and cut, cap and balance. Once the vote is over, Speaker Boehner needs to begin immediately working on a way out of the mess Cantor created. If he doesn’t, we could be in big trouble. There are dozens of possible compromises — he just has to take one. Reid, McConnell and the White House have plenty of options. The question is: Will he choose compromise for the sake of the country, or political grandstanding for the sake of his caucus?”

But wait!!!

All the Republicans keep telling us that this is the best they can hope for. How is it the best they can hope for when it is going to get less votes in the House and Senate than either Paul Ryan’s plan or Cut, Cap, and Balance.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by New York Times’ best selling author Brad Thor to discuss his newest thriller Full Black, how he develops material for his books, the importance of highlighting the work of the fearless patriots in America’s Special Forces, and the upcoming Warner Bros. film adaptations of his blockbuster novels.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

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The United States Federal Register adds an average of about 220 pages per day.  Yes, you read that right.  And yes, that means we are in the 80,000 pages per year zone.  These are the rules that govern our lives, that (some say) cost the country about $1.5 Trillion dollars per year.

Never forget that all of these laws, all of the agencies that enforce them, all of the regulations, and all of the investigations, arrests, and incarcerations that come with it, are paid for by the U.S. government using your tax dollars.  Worse yet, they have to borrow more and more money every year just to keep it going as they add ever increasing numbers of laws and regulations to manage the citizenry.

As has come to light recently, those administering the rules and regulations that we must all abide by, are themselves skirting that responsibility.  So while guns are being illegally sold to Mexican cartels, how are the law abiding citizens of the United States being treated?  Well, as it turns out..like criminals.

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As you wake up, here is what you need to know.

John Boehner thinks he has the votes to pass his third plan out of the House. Work to make sure he does not by going to http://www.redstate.com/action and calling your member of Congress. Tell them to oppose Boehner’s plan.

Even if you are sympathetic to Boehner’s plan, here is why it must be killed — it is a trap.

Pay attention please.

Harry Reid and all the Senate Democrats have sent John Boehner a letter saying they will oppose his plan in the Senate. In other words, Boehner’s plan, given the GOP votes in the Senate pledged to vote against it, will get less votes in both the House and in the Senate than Cut, Cap, and Balance.

Here, though, is why it is important to kill John Boehner’s plan this very morning before today’s vote.

John Boehner’s plan will get to the Senate. Harry Reid’s plan isn’t even in final form and has not even started making its way through the Senate’s arcane processes. It is a trap.

Harry Reid will amend John Boehner’s plan and include parts of Reid’s own plan that make tax increases even more likely than Boehner’s already does.

Senate Democrats last night were beginning to talk about adding the Gang of Six’s very bad plan to it as well — a trigger that would be engaged should the Democrats then refuse to reform entitlements, i.e. a trigger the Democrats will gladly engage because the Gang of Six plan raises taxes, including getting rid of the employer credit for active duty military reservists and raising the capital gains tax from 15% to 28%.

Then the Senate Democrats will send John Boehner back his own plan and dare John Boehner to kill his very own proposal. Should he try, the GOP will look as hardline and unwilling to compromise as John Boehner’s acolytes have been accusing conservatives of being this week.

In other words, John Boehner, once he sends his plan to the Senate, will yet again get played and the GOP will be forced to either accept Harry Reid’s awful changes or be blamed for causing the nation’s default — the very thing the GOP has sought to avoid.

Oh, and should the GOP fold and pass the modified Boehner plan, they’ll still get blamed for us losing our credit rating. Even with Boehner’s revisions, the Congressional Budget Office says the plan doesn’t cut even $1 trillion. It doesn’t meet S&P’s requirements.

Well done, Republicans.

The only thing we can do is call our congressmen and prevent them from voting for this suicide pact. Go here now.

RedState Morning Briefing
For July 28, 2011

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

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Anonymous and its associated online criminal organizations continue to face losses. A top Lulzsec leader was arrested in Scotland. Remember, this guy is no “activist.” He stole from people who happened to have Visas or MasterCards. Vigilante action against Anonymous and its online criminal wings continues, as well.

Anonymous is in such trouble, they’re now desperate for allies, begging unions to join their cause. Note that by targeting Paypal, Anonymous threatens the livelihoods of many who depend on income via Paypal simply to stay in business and pay bills.

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Rep. Jim Jordan, the Chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC), is taking massive heat from many of his own colleagues within the RSC for his public opposition to the Boehner debt deal. RSC staff is being called out by name for doing their job effectively. Calls are coming from all Leadershipistas to fire the RSC staff.

These members—such as Rep. Renee Ellmers (NC)—don’t like the fact that they are perceived on the wrong side of where the conservative movement ended up. Some are threatening to quit their membership in the House of Representative’s predominant conservative caucus.

If that’s what they think, they should submit their resignation—today.

I’d like to give everyone a brief understanding of what the RSC’s role is in Congress. I know because I worked there for over four years, served under three different RSC chairmen, with a two-year stint as its staff director.

The RSC is the conservative movement in the House of Representatives. It is not an arm of the elected House Leadership. It is not a cheerleader of everything that Leadership is doing. In fact, its job is to push Leadership as far to the right as is possible and flat out oppose it when necessary. As a result, Leadership often has a rocky relationship with whoever is the Chairman of the RSC because he or she is a political counterweight on whatever they are trying to do.

Now let me add a dynamic to the picture. A lot of—let’s be generous here—casually conservative Members of Congress like to join the RSC in order to be perceived back home as a 100% winger, but in reality, these Members are in the “Just Happy to Be Here” Caucus. They don’t fight, they often take bad votes if their Leadership wants them to, and when the RSC Chairman decides to fight, they often make his or her life absolutely miserable. Some threaten to quit the RSC. It is part of the territory.

In spite of all that abuse, and in spite of being from Ohio as Speaker Boehner is, Jim Jordan is proving to be one of the most effective Chairman in the history of the RSC. I know because I’ve worked for some of the others. Instead of being raked over the coals, he should be honored as a patriot.

Message to RSC Members who don’t like how the RSC is being managed: Get out.

One week ago the entire conservative movement was unified behind Cut, Cap, and Balance as was both House and Senate GOP caucus — no small feat to be sure.

Then, because Harry Reid denied CCB a vote through a procedural motion, John Boehner produces a crackpot plan that rips the conservative movement apart at the seams and after taking two stabs at it, still can’t get to the promised $1.2 trillion in cuts he initially claimed it would have.

The bill is being whipped against by Pelosi (which CCB was not) and will likely draw less Dem support than CCB. The bill is said by Reid to be DOA in the Senate.

But Boehner believes that it is strategically smarter to die on this hill and force it down Senate Dems throats rather than try to do that on a bill in which he has the support of all his members, all the movement, and 66 percent of the American people.

These people need to be put in a mental ward.

If you want to stop the GOP from taking a bad deal out of fear, go to http://www.redstate.com/action right now and call your member of Congress to oppose John Boehner’s plan.

This morning took an interesting turn of events. First the Wall Street Journal called us hobbits. Then Bill Kristol proclaimed us “pro-Obama.” Then John Boehner told his members to get their “asses in line.”

And then a handful of Republican members of congress started attacking me, this site, conservative members of congress, conservative staffers in congress, and conservative organizations including the Heritage Foundation, the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, and the list goes on and on.

Friends, this is why the fight is so important — the legacy of the Republican Party.

During the Bush Administration, many conservatives got co-opted. It became more important to be on the team than fight on principle. Consequently, we got No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, TARP, the GM bailout, etc.

We almost got stuck with Harriet Miers and immigration reform.

When the GOP was finally tossed for its “culture of corruption,” there were very few Republicans standing in Washington that the GOP felt it could trust. Mike Pence was one. Jeff Flake another. Jim DeMint for sure.

So conservatives rallied to send them reinforcements — Tom Graves, Dave Schwiekert, Tim Huelskamp, Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, etc.

The GOP told us they had turned from their big spending ways. John Boehner went so far last year to say he appreciated outside conservative groups holding their feet to the fire.

And then today —

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The fact that the sordid details about Operation Fast & Furious (short edition: the federal government allowed guns to be illegally resold to Mexican narco-terrorists, who then proceeded to murder people with them) are all breaking during the debt ceiling situation is either the absolute best or the absolute worst luck for the Obama administration. On the one hand, the administration is not getting hammered with new details and demands for information every day: on the other, eventually the debt ceiling situation will be over, and when all that happens, the details will have piled up most alarmingly.

Don’t believe me? Let me just list the stuff that we’ve learned this week.:

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The Third Annual RedState Gathering is coming up very soon — and we’d like to invite you to attend.

With the race for the GOP presidential nomination shifting into high gear, this much-anticipated annual gathering promises to be the best one yet.

It will be held on August 12-14 at the Francis Marion Hotel in Charleston, South Carolina — and will feature as its keynote speaker South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, along with Governor Rick Perry, Senator Jim DeMint, and many more.

To read all about the Gathering, click here. To register for the Gathering, click here.

BOOK YOUR ROOM
The Gathering has grown this year and we are taking over Battery Park in the historic district. We have several hotel options available. Below, please find the remaining “early bird” hotel option available to this year’s attendees, the Courtyard Marriott. Although the main meeting will take place at the nearby Francis Marion Hotel, portions of the program will take place at both hotels.

Booking deadlines are closing in fast and the reservations are pouring in. Make sure you reserve your room this week for the best rate! Please find the Gathering hotel information below.

Courtyard Charleston Historic District
125 Calhoun Street | Charleston, South Carolina | 29401 | 1-843-805-7900

To make your reservation, use the RedState Gathering booking site.

Courtyard by Marriott Charleston Historic District hotel in downtown Charleston is just steps from King Street boutique shopping, SPAWAR, Boeing and the Charleston Joint Base. Our downtown Charleston hotel’s exciting location makes anytime the perfect time to visit this charming Southern jewel. Our historic downtown location offers breathtaking cityscapes and attractions that sparkle all year long. From sun-dappled water views of the Battery and beaches to the historic homes and gardens, visitors fall in love with this all Southern city has to offer. Tempt your palate with low-country cuisine, marvel at the city’s unique culture, arts and recreation. Charleston is a distinctive destination and our Charleston downtown hotel boasts a fantastic location for business and leisure.