The GOP Response to the State of the Union Address

Here is the Republican response.  I would publish the text of the State of the Union speech, but I don't have enough room.  Nobody has that much room.

Good evening. I'm Bob McDonnell. Eleven days ago I was honored to be sworn in as the 71st governor of Virginia.

I'm standing in the historic House Chamber of Virginia's Capitol, a building designed by Virginia's second governor, Thomas Jefferson.

It’s not easy to follow the President of the United States. And my twin 18-year old boys have added to the pressure, by giving me exactly ten minutes to finish before they leave to go watch SportsCenter.

I'm joined by fellow Virginians to share a Republican perspective on how to best address the challenges facing our nation today.

We were encouraged to hear President Obama speak this evening about the need to create jobs.

All Americans should have the opportunity to find and keep meaningful work, and the dignity that comes with it.

Many of us here, and many of you watching, have family or friends who have lost their jobs.

1 in 10 American workers is unemployed. That is unacceptable.

Here in Virginia we have faced our highest unemployment rate in more than 25 years, and bringing new jobs and more opportunities to our citizens is the top priority of my administration.

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.

Last year, we were told that massive new federal spending would create more jobs 'immediately' and hold unemployment below 8%.

In the past year, over three million Americans have lost their jobs, yet the Democratic Congress continues deficit spending, adding to the bureaucracy, and increasing the national debt on our children and grandchildren.

The amount of this debt is on pace to double in five years, and triple in ten. The federal debt is already over $100,000 per household.

This is simply unsustainable. The President's partial freeze on discretionary spending is a laudable step, but a small one.

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.

In recent months, the American people have made clear that they want government leaders to listen and act on the issues most important to them.

We want results, not rhetoric. We want cooperation, not partisanship.

There is much common ground.

All Americans agree, we need a health care system that is affordable, accessible, and high quality.

But most Americans do not want to turn over the best medical care system in the world to the federal government.

Republicans in Congress have offered legislation to reform healthcare, without shifting Medicaid costs to the states, without cutting Medicare, and without raising your taxes.

We will do that by implementing common sense reforms, like letting families and businesses buy health insurance policies across state lines, and ending frivolous lawsuits against doctors and hospitals that drive up the cost of your healthcare.

And our solutions aren't thousand-page bills that no one has fully read, after being crafted behind closed doors with special interests.

In fact, many of our proposals are available online at solutions.gop.gov, and we welcome your ideas on Facebook and Twitter.

All Americans agree, this nation must become more energy independent and secure.

We are blessed here in America with vast natural resources, and we must use them all.

Advances in technology can unleash more natural gas, nuclear, wind, coal, and alternative energy to lower your utility bills.

Here in Virginia, we have the opportunity to be the first state on the East Coast to explore for and produce oil and natural gas offshore.

But this Administration’s policies are delaying offshore production, hindering nuclear energy expansion, and seeking to impose job-killing cap and trade energy taxes.

Now is the time to adopt innovative energy policies that create jobs and lower energy prices.

All Americans agree, that a young person needs a world-class education to compete in the global economy. As a kid my dad told me, "Son, to get a good job, you need a good education." That’s even more true today.

The President and I agree on expanding the number of high-quality charter schools, and rewarding teachers for excellent performance. More school choices for parents and students mean more accountability and greater achievement.

A child's educational opportunity should be determined by her intellect and work ethic, not by her zip code.

All Americans agree, we must maintain a strong national defense. The courage and success of our Armed Forces is allowing us to draw down troop levels in Iraq as that government is increasingly able to step up. My oldest daughter, Jeanine, was an Army platoon leader in Iraq, so I'm personally grateful for the service and the sacrifice of all of our men and women in uniform, and a grateful nation thanks them.

We applaud President Obama's decision to deploy 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. We agree that victory there is a national security imperative. But we have serious concerns over recent steps the Administration has taken regarding suspected 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.

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.

And no government program can replace the actions of caring Americans freely choosing to help one another. The Scriptures say "To whom much is given, much will be required." As the most generous and prosperous nation on Earth, it is heartwarming to see Americans giving much time and money to the people of Haiti. Thank you for your ongoing compassion.

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.

God Bless you, and God Bless our great nation.

Democratic Leaders React to Brown's Victory

More Corbett Indictments

According to an inside source, today at 1:00 p.m., Attorney General Tom Corbett announced the indictments of William Deweese, former majority leader of the House, a staffer from his office, and the former head of the Rendell Administration Revenue Department, Stephen Stetler.  They had earlier received target letters, as has Majority Leader Todd Eachus, a step that is commonly a precursor to indictment.

The timing of the indictments are fortuitous as they, once again, help to catapult Corbett into the lead for the Republican nomination for, and eventual election as, governor a la Thomas Dewey in New York of the 1940's.

The downside is that the trials, if they happen, may very well happen during that campaign, causing a potential downside for Corbett if he loses the trials as he did very recently.

The poor you shall always have with you

John Fielding

On September 18, 2009, Bill Ulrich commented on the passage “For you always have the poor with you” and, in so doing, excerpted a comment of mine from the combox of my blog, “Berks Conservative”:

Jesus said, "The poor you will always have with you," and he is right, almost by definition. Since I beleive (sic) the problem to be ultimately intractable (at least in the sense of some always suffering), I tend to steer clear of utopian solutions since those "solutions" have hsitorically (sic) caused the most suffering experience by the greatest number. Ultimately, if government would get out of the way, I think charity would then be freed to step up to the plate (if it hasn't already become so atrophied by haveing [sic] government usurp its role all these years.)

Now, I am not accustomed to having my blog read by folks at the Reading Eagle, still less Bill Ulrich, and even less, the combox. I guess I will have to be more careful of my spelling next time if my comments in my combox are going to gain such notoriety. Indeed, it took me quite a while to even realize that Ulrich had said anything, and the intervening election kept me from responding more quickly.

Before Mr. Ulrich disagrees with me in his column, however, he disagrees with the Bible itself (“Clearly, this is one story the Bible doesn’t have straight.”), so I suppose I should feel flattered to be in such esteemed company. He engages in the same fish-eyed criticism of the Bible that we have come to expect from liberal churchmen so I suppose we should expect the same from liberal church laymen. Having destroyed the Bible as divine revelation by interpreting it in the most naturalistic manner possible, the liberals have proceeded to pour into it the most saccharine liberal social understanding possible. Indeed, Jesus is so inoffensive in the liberal telling, one wonders why anyone would have gone to the trouble of crucifying him at all.

In this scene, Jesus is attending a meal at the home of Simon the Leper in Bethany. A woman has an expensive box of perfume and anoints Jesus’ head with the perfume. The disciples (in John, we learn it is Judas leading the way) begin murmuring against this to the effect that the perfume was expensive and could have been sold, and the money given to the poor. Jesus responds in the Mark account, “Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me. For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always. She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.” (Mk. 14:6-9).

Oddly enough, Ulrich says this:

In the Markan account, Jesus says "For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish" (14:7), echoing the Mosaic law set down in Deuteronomy: "Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land’" (15:11).” We can make much of the fact that in the synoptic Gospel accounts of Jesus’ anointing, he is in the house of a leper – one who is unclean and a societal outcast - in Matthew and Mark and in the house of a Pharisee in Luke. We can also explicate the significance of a kingly anointing by a woman when women had no status in that society and what significance exists in the anointing of Jesus’ head in Matthew and Mark and his feet in Luke and John.

That’s a long discussion for another day.

Then he goes on to take issue with me: “But we must take issue with Fielding’s hyperbole that his straw-man ‘utopian solutions… have historically caused greater suffering among the most people.’ Is care for the poor a "utopian" ideal or a Christian value?”

Of course we know that care for the poor is not a utopian value, but in order to find out why, we must have the long discussion that Ulrich eschews.

To the contrary, the Bible commands care for the poor. In fact, the fact that Jesus quotes the Deuteronomy verse indicates that, contra some current scholarship, Jesus’ teachings are not just dropped out of heaven, with no connection to the Old Testament.

And that is the point.

God has commanded how the poor are to be cared for in the Old Testament, and the government is nary to be seen, either in prescibing the care, or in enforcing it, or in punishing the lack of it. In fact, part of the condemnation of the nation Israel by the prophets was that Israel did not care for the poor as God had commanded and that was one reason for God’s judgment. But we search the Scriptures in vain for commands for governmental action on behalf of the poor, actual governmental action such as a welfare state, or, more importantly, any enforcement mechanism for individual Israelites’ failures to obey the commands of the poor law.

In creating his own strawman, Ulrich equivocates between my distaste for “utopian solutions” to poverty, and any care for the poor whatsoever.

Despite the impression upon our modern society has, which would rather create its own standard for good and evil, and generosity or lack thereof, Biblical law is fairly moderate in its approach.

The state and the church are fairly closely circumscribed, with certain responsibilities being left to the family (such as the bulk of charity), leaving considerable freedom for individual action. I believe I said nothing about the “free-market” or “capitalism” in my combox, but Ulrich just assumes that I believe that the free-market is the solution.

And of course he is right, although not to the exclusion of care for the poor by individuals, families, and church under biblical law. Notice I did not mention the state. Because there is no such provision. It is when the state steps in a la liberal progressive Christian social gospel that we have the “utopian” solutions I distrust so much.

Because the free-market is what is left after state, church, family, and individual have obeyed those commandments directed to those spheres of authority in the Bible. Thus, “free-market” is simply another word for free individuals engaging in free human action.

Sorry Bill doesn’t like it.

Far be it from us to gloat...

On this morning of bright and shiny political glory, it would be presumptuous of us to remind our assorted Bolshie fans of the reason we won both Sutton and Long last night.

So, we won't.

Much.

Suffice it to say, as primary-colored roundels strafe Red wounded for target practice, that this may have had something to do with it:

and perhaps this:

This is not Fire Island or the mud massage room at The Bell Tower. When you run campaigns that only try to impress denizens of both, you get it right up the ... well... ahem..... Of course, some people...

My advice? Continue to use the same teams you used this time around. It will make us happy enough to fly more victory rolls, and you able to whine about the evil GOP attack machine.

We get power, you get melodrama. Sounds like a fair trade to me.  

Sutton piles on Corbit

John Fielding

Here’s the latest spot in the campaign for Berks Prothonotary. And as you will see, it’s a hilarious spot. As we predicted earlier, this October Surprise further hits the Corbit campaign, an effort already on the ropes. Our sources tell us that this is not the end of Corbit’s misery, as the Sutton campaign has one more massive and also hilarious trick up its sleeve to finish the campaign in proper style. Enjoy.


We also hear that in an erstwhile private e-mail from the Corbit campaign that they find alleged covert sexual innuendo in commentary on the Corbit campaign "icky." Icky? Icky?! What kind of word is that for a man to use? Icky. I'll show you icky.

Attendee at the Reading Pride celebration, which Corbit attended

Or this

or this

Mr. Corbit doesn't seem to mind "icky."

Charles Corbit, far left Dem Prothy candidate and happy Reading Pride revelers

Neither does his "campaign manager," Jane Palmer.

The only problem with the Corbit camp is that it doesn't understand a political campaign.  These girls think they're involved in performance art.  Reports are that because the Sutton campaign kicked back and didn't stand still to watch a senior County row officer get slammed by false and misleading campaign drivel from the arts and croissants crowd surrounding Corbit, Corbit's in a crisis mode.

He is alleged to have said that he doesn't understand why people have to be so "hurtful" in politics, and that he "just wanted to go someplace and hide until the campaign was over" and other things on his campaign website that have been excised because they are truly "icky."

Well, bro, as Wll Smith said in Men in Black, "don't start nuttin', won't be nuttin."

The Berks Democrats Strike Out Again

John Fielding

Well, well.

What will the Berks Democrats think of next?

They have much to pick from, but in the county races they may have had a shot in they go with a professionally challenged dilettante and an estrogen-enriched pretty boy.

Snyder and Corbit, running against Long and Sutton, for Treasurer and Prothonotary respectively but not respectfully, have enlisted the battered acolytes of the president as their base of support. In Berks today, not last year, too little very late.

Snyder is so dense light bends around her. She’s out of her depth in a parking lot puddle. Long has toyed with her in debate, reducing her to simpering. But she’s got cash and, despite a non-starter resume, is not an incumbent in a rebellious year. Long is wildly popular with moderates and his gruff/no b.s. demeanor and C.P.A. status is seen by most as a proper temperament and creds for the office.

Corbit is, well, from a certain sub-section of the usual Dem grievance groups. Rumor is that may come to hurt him late this month. He’s running for Prothonotary rock hard and has a consistent message against Sutton. Sutton herself, a long vote-getting champ, has his number and is punishing him (though, he may like that) in the media war. Perhaps a…ahem…protégé of a Dem elected official, Corbit is making neophyte mistakes and is bleeding momentum. And the shadowy circumstances of his wife’s recent filing for divorce cannot help matters much.

The lack of qualifications of Snyder and the cult of personality aspect of the Corbit campaign highlight two major motivating forces in today’s Democratic Party: nihilism and narcissism. From the White House on down, who cares if they have any ideas for the job if they just really want it or the camera likes them? It recalls the Coen Brothers’ great line, “Nihilists! F--- me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.”

Neither of these races is in the bag for any candidate. But in a year the Dems could have zigged, they zagged. When they could have swoshed, they swished and grabbed possible defeat out of the pouty mouth of victory. Nice going girls.