Happy Post-Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving was nice. In fact, I still feel a little full as I’m sure many of you do. So let’s ease back into the political scene with a quick catch-up post on what you missed over the holidays.

Item One: There Is No God! Guess who left “God” out of the annual Thanksgiving Day address? If you guessed Obama, then you win a prize. So Obama makes sure the White House honors Islamic holidays, but he won’t mention God on a holiday that honors Christians who came to the New World to find religious freedom? I guess we shouldn’t really be surprised, the left has waged a war against religion for decades now.

Item Two: Let’s Not Be Frank. Barney Frank announced today he will retire. His reasons were the usual, wanted to spend more time at gay bars and politics is too nasty now that the Republicans are in charge. He also hinted at the real reason: he was going to lose. Last election he almost lost his seat to a no-named token Republican. Since that time, his district has been re-districted so that he lost a chunk of supporters. Rather than blow his money in a possibly embarrassing loss, he decided to abandon ship and make off with his ill-gotten booty.

Item Three: Colon Powell. Did I misspell that? Nope. Old Rectum’s latest bit of stupidity is to blame the Tea Party for the “divisive tone” in Washington. Forget that this has been the case since the MSM went to war against Nixon and went full-retard against Reagan and almost went blind from their hate against Bush II. . . yep, forget all that. It’s the Tea Party! Those average Americans who want their government to stop spending so much, are the reason everyone in DC hates each other.

We should be thankful the Republicans never fell for the idiotic idea of drafting Powell to run for President. Powell is a turkey. He’s not a great general (in fact, he was the guy who whined we would lose 60,000 troops if we attacked Iraq), he has never shown much in the way of brains, he’s liberal on all issues, and he’s shown tremendous disloyalty. In other words, he’s the ideal RINO and should be tossed out of the party.

Item Four: Tebowmania. Speaking of the war against religion, I have to mention Tim Tebow. I’m not a Florida Gators fan, nor a Denver Broncos fan. I knew little about Tebow before he was drafted and I cared even less. And I don’t care what anyone’s religious beliefs are. That’s all up to you and it’s none of my business.

But I don’t like the way Tebow’s being treated. From the very beginning there was a real wave of venom aimed at him. People, especially sportswriters, HATED him. Why did they hate him? Here's a clue: every single article they wrote or comment they made on the air went out of its way to attack him for being religious. Sure, they denied religious bias, but they couldn’t help themselves. . . they had to keep mentioning it. Now they’re even trying to project their obsession onto his fans by claiming the fans are the ones who keep bringing up his religion, which just isn’t true. They keep saying the fans are claiming that just because Tebow is religious, he should be allowed to play quarterback. Only, no one has ever said this. To the contrary, it’s the sportswriters who are saying he shouldn’t be allowed to play quarterback precisely because he is religious.

I know obsession when I see it, and this is obsession.

What’s interesting is that if Tebow were black none of this would be a problem. Ray Lewis (who has murdered a man) and others regularly profess their faith in all their interviews and the media praises them for it. But let Tebow be seen giving a quick prayer and heads begin to explode.

Moreover, I find the criticism stunningly hypocritical. Tebow is now 5-1 as a starter. That’s better than most black quarterbacks in their rookie years, yet criticism of those quarterbacks for failing to win was called “racist.” We're told Tebow can’t throw, yet he has a higher completion percentage than Mike Vick did in two of his seasons and has already thrown for more yards than Mike Vick did in his rookie year -- yet the same people who hate Tebow and say he can’t play were verbally fellating Vick and calling his critics “racists.” These are also the same people who now write articles condemning the rest of us for not forgiving Vick for his dog fighting crimes even though he never showed any contrition. So we're the intolerant ones, huh?

What is going on here is liberalism in action. The affirmative action mentality says that any criticism of black quarterbacks is racist and must be shouted down. And Christianity is oppressive, so it must be oppressed. How else do you explain that full-on obsessive, public hatred of a white Christian kid simply because of his religion is suddenly acceptable? It's despicable.

Item Five: Supercommittee Fails. And no one cares. In fact, Pat Toomey pointed out they can just ignore the deal’s requirements to impose the draconian cuts. More false Washington drama.

Welcome back!

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Super Committee Not So Super

The debt ceiling agreement requires the formation of a “super committee” of twelve Senators and Congressmen, who will be charged with finding $1.2 trillion in additional deficit reduction. To approve anything, the committee needs 7 out of 12 votes. If it fails, or if Congress does not approve its recommendations, automatic cuts will kick in to make up the difference between what the committee approves and $1.2 trillion. So, how is the committee stacking up? It’s not horrible.

The Good

● Tax Pledge: Every Republican member has signed Grover Norquist’s pledge not to raise taxes.

● Leftist Anger: Leftist bloggers like the Daily Kos are furious at Harry Reid’s picks, which they consider unwilling to defend entitlements.

● Defense Sec. Leon Panetta: Democrat Leon Panetta just undermined the Democratic plan by saying that the super committee should not cut anything else from the defense budget. This will make it hard for Democrats to sell further defense cuts.

● Pat Toomey (R) (McConnell appointee): Toomey is the ultimate Tea Party guy. He’s the former head of the conservative Club for Growth and a Tea Party favorite. In fact, he tried to unseat Arlen Specter before there even was a Tea Party. He’s a solid conservative. Interestingly, he says he would be willing to eliminate deductions and subsidies in exchange for lower income tax rates, but will oppose any sort of “big tax increase.” That puts tax reform on the table.

● Jeb Hensarling (R) (Boehner appointee): Hensarling is a former chair of the conservative Republican Study Committee. He is also a member of the Budget Committee and works closely with Paul Ryan, who asked not to be appointed to this commission. His views are fairly similar to the Tea Party Republicans.

● Fred Upton (R) (Boehner appointee): You might recall Upton from the lightbulb debate. At the time, we weren’t sure if he would be willing to cast off his moderate environmentalism and do a good job of shifting the Energy and Commerce Committee to the right. He has. And he should be a good player here. He seems interested in ending energy subsidies, particularly for wind and solar: “Since I am sure that the industry will never give up its free money voluntarily, now is the time for us to slash it on our terms.” This has freaked out environmentalists.

● John Kyl (R) (McConnell appointee): Kyle is retiring at the end of the year, and wants to be Vice President. He has been a reliable conservative during his time in the Senate. He has a long record of pushing tax cuts and he walked out of the Biden talks because he felt the Democrats only wanted “job-killing tax hikes and new spending.” He also has suggested cutting deductions in exchange for lower rates.

The Bad

● Dave Camp (R) (Boehner appointee): Camp is the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. I know nothing about him (which is a bad thing) except that he is a member of both the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership and the conservative Republican Study Committee. Being a member of the RSC is a good thing and he describes himself as a conservative on fiscal policy, but he has favored extending unemployment benefits and the auto bailout.

● Rob Portman (R) (McConnell appointee): Portman is a former Bush budget director, which is not a good thing. He’s a freshman Senator from Ohio and I know little about him, except that he’s considered the weak link on the Republican side. He too has signaled a willingness to reduce tax breaks, but says that those cuts should be used to lower rates.

The Ugly

● Max Baucus (D) (Reid appointee): Finance Committee Chairman Baucus is a wild card. He has shown an ability to act in a bipartisan manner when he worked with Chuck Grassley on a jobs bill which the Democratic left flank hated because it included tax cuts. But he also came up with Obamacare. He is likely to fight to protect farm subsidies and Obamacare. Interestingly, former Republican Senate Alan Simpson, who chaired Obama’s deficit reduction committee of which Baucus was a member, call him an awful choice. He described Baucus as being lazy, unhelpful and out of touch.

● John Kerry (D) (Reid appointee): Kerry is a troubling pick. First, he lobbied to get on the committee because he’s looking for a legacy. That’s always a bad sign. Secondly, he has proved to be a standard liberal ass. Third, he just accused the Tea Party of being the cause of the downgrade and he made the Orwellian suggestion that the media should ignore the Tea Party. That said, he was one of the first to attack Obama’s Afghanistan policy, claiming that we should not stick with a policy just because it exists. And Alan Simpson strangely suggests that: “Kerry will do good work, he really will. I know him well.” If he wants a genuine legacy, then he will need to move right, but we'll see.

The Ugliest

● Patty Murray (D) (Reid appointee): Patty Murray is the most cynical choice. She is the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. This means that her job is to protect the 22 Democratic senators who are up for re-election in 2012. Their current campaign strategy is to scare old people by slandering the GOP by claiming Republicans are trying to destroy Medicare. Of this pick, one Republican official said: “It is shocking that Harry Reid appointed his chief fundraiser to a committee that will be the central focus of every lobbyist in town.”

● Pelosi: Pelosi has yet to appoint her three clowns, but you can pretty much guess they will be total losers.

At this point, Baucus and Kerry are where we will need to look to get a good deal. At the same time, we will need to watch Portman. My guess is that we end up with a little tax reform, the ending of some deductions and subsidies, a reduction in rates, a trimming of entitlement numbers without an actual plan to cause the cuts, and some minor discretionary cuts.

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