Our #1 story is a humorous look at future Newsweek covers. #2 looks at the 10 PM question which the Republican candidate will get from the MSM and wonders who would be best to handle it. #3 shows how Newt in the Monday debate told the country what conservatism is. #4 relates how Harry Reid has reassured us of how the Democrats have reached out to Republicans. #5 relates a politically incorrect joke that got a professor fired. Actually it is pretty funny. #6 is the report from Obama’s job council that says we should approve the Keystone pipeline. Not good timing considering its being reported that Obama is turning the pipeline down. I’m sure he is staying up night thinking about nothing but jobs.
1. Newsweek’s future Covers Released
Some entertaining photoshopped future covers of Newsweek.
2. The 10 PM Question
It's 10 pm. It's Martin Luther King Day. You're in the South. A packed auditorium is deathly quiet. A large national TV audience is watching. The electoral stakes are sky-high. You are sweating on behalf of your favorite candidate. Then an African-American journalist calls your guy's name -- and asks a racially tinged "gotcha" question.
OH NO! Hit the mute button. Take a beer break. I can't bear to watch! Why do we let liberals moderate our debates?!
So it's not exactly "the 3 am phone call" from the 2008 race. No, it's scarier than that. It's the "10 pm question." And you can bet your bottom dollar it's coming to a general election debate near you. You have to know it is. So the question the Republicans need to ask themselves is this: whom do you trust to handle "the 10 pm question"?...
….No, there's only one Republican we would like to hear answer such a question, and boy did we ever hear it Monday night in the Myrtle Beach Republican Debate.
Juan Williams -- fired from NPR because he was too Islamophobic and not Foxophobic enough -- asked the 10 pm question. He thought he had a winner. Juan's flaw, however, is that he picked such a situation to call on Newt Gingrich. He wanted Newt to flail away trying to defend some of his previous statements through the typical liberal racist template. Juan, like his Fox cohort Megyn Kelly a few weeks ago, clearly thought he had Newt cornered….
Gingrich did make mincemeat out of Williams with his answer. After he asked this question, I don’t remember him asking another one.
3. Gingrich tells America what it means to be a Conservative
Newt Gingrich identified the very core of conservatism with his remarks in the first South Carolina presidential debate. His vision of conservatism is the one that most Republicans don't understand and most Democrats don't want you to know.
Gingrich was asked to explain his views on work ethic and the government erosion of that ethic through (at least in part) federal and state entitlement programs like food stamps. He suggested that poor high school students be given opportunities to perform janitorial services in their schools as a way to earn money and to learn how to work at a job.
He then cut to the chase on why a jobs program like that would benefit everyone involved: "I believe every American of every background has been endowed by their Creator with the right to pursue happiness," he said. "And [even] if that makes liberals unhappy, I'm going to continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job, and learn some day to own the job."
So there you have it -- the very practical essence of what it means to be a conservative today. It's not about keeping taxes low, although that generally makes the most sense. It's not about being hawkish in conflicts around the globe, although a strong national defense -- even outside our borders -- is crucial. It's especially not about favoring one group -- big corporations or small businesses, white or black, poor or rich -- over another.
Conservatism is about conserving our unalienable rights -- among these being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- and preserving, protecting, and promoting those rights for the benefit of everyone in the country….
Liberals don’t want people to have unalienable rights. They want us to have rights that they feel we should have and that come from the government.
4. Harry Reid and his magical reach out to Republicans
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has a novel conception of his job priorities. One recent day, the Nevada Democrat took it upon himself to lecture Republicans on how they should conduct their business. Claiming Republicans practiced "obstructionism on steroids" in 2011, Reid said he hoped "that they understand that everything doesn't have to be a fight. Legislation is an art of working together, building consensus, compromise. And I hope that the Tea Party doesn't have the influence in this next year that they had in the previous year."
It's no surprise that Reid hopes the Tea Party has less influence in 2012. After all, the Tea Party provided the spark that powered Republicans to an historic 2010 election victory, retaking the House of Representatives with a 63-seat gain, electing more than a dozen new GOP governors and upwards of 700 freshmen state legislators across the country. It was the GOP's biggest off-year election victory since Silent Cal was in the White House. What Reid is likely even more worried about, though, is that Tea Party muscle will give the GOP a Senate majority in November and boot him out of his comfy job.
In those same remarks, Reid offered this laugher about his party's purported efforts in 2011 to break the legislative deadlock between President Obama and Senate Democrats on one side and House Republicans on the other: "I don't think ... anyone can question or they should question our having reached out to Republicans. We've done everything we could to work with them. We're going to continue to do that. In spite of the obstructionism, we have been able to accomplish a lot of good things in the last Congress."
Let it be noted, however, that the most prominent missing item among those "good things" Reid claims to have accomplished was fulfilling one of the Senate's most basic constitutional duties -- approving an annual federal budget. In fact, Reid and his Senate Democratic colleagues couldn't even do that two years ago when Nancy Pelosi was House Speaker and Democrats controlled the lower chamber….
My title for this article is a satire. I use the words magical reach out to Republicans since no one has seen it, it must be magic. As for keeping control of the Senate, Reid must win 64% of the seats up for election to do that. He won’t.
5. College Professor fired for politically incorrect joke
When Robert Klein Engler–a conservative professor at Roosevelt University–was fired from his position, he was upset. He was frustrated. And he was completely in the dark.
University officials refused to specify exactly why he had been let go, and did not divulge the details until two months after the firing, in August of 2010. The reason? He told a politically incorrect joke. Now Engler is suing the university and its union for failing to protect his academic freedom. …
It took months for the university to explain the nature of the harassment charge, and it involved only one student, who had come complained about a joke Engler made in his City and Citizenship course. class. The joke was told during a discussion of Arizona’s immigration law. In jest, Engler said, “A group of sociologists did a poll in Arizona regarding the state’s new immigration law. Sixty percent said they were in favor, and 40 percent said, ‘No hablo Ingles.’”
The inmates are running the asylum.
6. Obama Jobs Counsel Report
President Obama’s jobs council called Tuesday for an “all-in approach” to energy policy that includes expanded oil-and-gas drilling as well as expediting energy projects like pipelines.
“[W]e should allow more access to oil, natural gas and coal opportunities on federal lands,” states the year-end report released Tuesday by the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.
“[W]e should allow more access to oil, natural gas and coal opportunities on federal lands,” states the year-end report released Tuesday by the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.
The report does not specifically mention the Keystone XL oil pipeline, but it endorses moving forward quickly with projects that “deliver electricity and fuel,” including pipelines.
“The Council recognizes the important safety and environmental concerns surrounding these types of projects, but now more than ever, the jobs and economic and energy security benefits of these energy projects require us to tackle the issues head-on and to expeditiously, though cautiously, move forward on projects that can support hundreds of thousands of jobs,” the report says.
The report retreats slightly from an interim report released in October that addressed the Keystone XL pipeline directly. The interim report appeared to offer cautious support for Keystone, calling on officials to “balance” environmental protections while realizing what it called the benefits of the pipeline.
But Keystone supporters will point out that the year-end report released Tuesday argues that energy projects like pipelines will result in economic and security benefits. It even echoes a common refrain from Republicans and the oil industry: that such energy projects "can support hundreds of thousands of jobs."
White House press secretary Jay Carney insisted Tuesday that the jobs council report does not endorse the Keystone pipeline.
The council’s report seems to be an endorsement of John McCain’s energy policy from the 2008 election. I guess even liberals realize that Sarah was right. Drill, baby, drill.
Great Quote: Which isn't to say that racism has been completely eradicated. It lives on in the minds of liberals who see Bull Connor when they look at Ozzie Nelson. James Taranto
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