PK'S NOTE: And we need to do more of this. Not respond to the emotion but to call them on the carpet with facts and their own bad behavior:

Piers Morgan discovers Ben Shapiro isn’t Alex Jones

Duane hit this in the Green Room, but I want to note a few passages from the appearance of Breitbart’s Ben Shapiro on CNN with Piers Morgan last night. First, Ben calls out Morgan for acting like a bully to his guests and an activist rather than a journalist, a theme that fits nicely with Ben’s new book, Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans. Ben told me on Wednesday’s TEMS that he was relishing the confrontation — and you can see why:

BEN SHAPIRO, EDITOR BREITBART.COM: You know, honestly Piers, you have kind of been a bully on this issue, because what you do, and I’ve seen it repeatedly on your show. I watch your show. And I’ve seen it repeatedly. What you tend to do is you tend to demonize people who differ from you politically by standing on the graves of the children of Sandy Hook saying they don’t seem to care enough about the dead kids. If they cared more about the dead kids, they would agree with you on policy. I think we can have a rational, political conversation about balancing rights and risks and rewards of all of these different policies, but I don’t think that what we need to do is demonize people on the other side as being unfeeling about what happened at Sandy Hook.
MORGAN: How dare you accuse me of standing on the graves of the children that died there. How dare you.
SHAPIRO: I’ve seen you do it repeatedly, Piers.
MORGAN: Like I say, how dare you.
SHAPIRO: Well, I mean, you can keep saying that, but you’ve done it repeatedly. What you do, and I’ve seen you do it on your program, is you keep saying to folks if they disagree with you politically, then somehow this is a violation of what happened in Sandy Hook. And you, I would really like to hear your policy prescriptions for what we should do about guns because you say you respect the second amendment. You know, I brought this here for you so you can read it. It’s the Constitution. And I would really like for you to explain to me what you would do about guns that would have prevented what happened in Sandy Hook. If you want to do what you did in the U.K., right, which is ban virtually all guns, that is at least a fair argument and we can have a discussion about whether that’s something that we ought to do or not.

Shapiro was also prepared to fight back when Morgan brings up “assault weapons” a couple of moments later:

MORGAN: They want to take away assault weapons, which are capable with magazines that we saw in Aurora and Sandy hook, of unleashing a ridiculous amount of —
SHAPRIO: This is what I wanted to ask you, Piers, because I have seen you talk about assault weapons a lot, and I have seen Mark Kelly talk about assault weapons. The vast majority of murders in this country that are committed with guns are committed with handguns, they are not committed assault weapons. Are you willing to ban handguns in this country, across this country?
MORGAN: No, that’s not what I’m asking for.
SHAPIRO: Why not? Don’t you care about the kids who are being killed in Chicago as much as the kids in Sandy Hook?
MORGAN: Yes, I do.
SHAPIRO: Then why don’t you care about banning the handguns in Chicago?
MORGAN: We’ll come to that.

Actually, Morgan never answers that question, as you can read from the transcript as well as watching from the video. He also never provides an answer as to why the assault-weapons ban in Connecticut didn’t stop the Newtown shooting — nor did Morgan ever provide a definition of “assault weapon.” That’s because Morgan has been talking out of his nether regions for the last several weeks on this topic, and Shapiro makes that pretty clear in the interview.

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/01/11/video-piers-morgan-discovers-ben-shapiro-isnt-alex-jones/

NEW HAMPSHIRE LEGISLATOR: WE NEED TO ‘RESTRICT FREEDOMS’ OF CONSERVATIVES

A New Hampshire legislator wants her constituents to know that she feels conservatives are the “single biggest threat” her state faces today, and she wants to use her powers to legislate to “pass measures that will restrict” the freedoms of Granite State conservatives.

In a blog post made last month on the left-wing site Blue Hampshire, 3rd District State Representative Democrat Cynthia Chase advised her fellow legislators to use their positions to make New Hampshire less welcoming to any conservative or libertarian planning on moving to her state—not to mention those already in residence.

For those unaware, a conservative project of sorts has been underway in New Hampshire since 2001. The idea is that Americans of conservative ideals are to move to New Hampshire, gather in communities, run for office, and work to drive the state toward libertarianism and conservatism. It is called the “Free State Project” and adherents are called “Free Staters.”

These Free Staters figure that the state’s motto, “Live Free or Die,” should really mean something and it is these citizens whose freedoms legislator Chase wants to oppress.

In her December 21 post, Chase wrote that, “Free Staters are the single biggest threat the state is facing today.”

“In the opinion of this Democrat, Free Staters are the single biggest threat the state is facing today. There is, legally, nothing we can do to prevent them from moving here to take over the state, which is their openly stated goal. In this country you can move anywhere you choose and they have that same right. What we can do is to make the environment here so unwelcoming that some will choose not to come, and some may actually leave. One way is to pass measures that will restrict the ‘freedoms’ that they think they will find here. Another is to shine the bright light of publicity on who they are and why they are coming.”

Of course, it is one thing to be a proponent of laws that might have the unintended consequences of restricting others’ freedoms. If one truly believes in such policies, well, they may be disastrously wrong, but at least they’d be honestly wrong. A fine point, to be sure.

But here we have a legislator that doesn’t just want to pass laws that are tangentially restrictive. She wants to purposefully use her powers to write laws to target individuals with whom she disagrees, take away their freedoms and liberties, and all in the hopes that the citizens she is oppressing might move away from her state.

As New Hampshirite Steve MacDonald notes, “this sounds like tyranny.”

Imagine if a legislator had written a blog post targeting the freedoms of gays, or women, or some other minority? One would think that the media would go wild with such a story. But here we have an elected official suggesting that government be used in the United States of America to eliminate freedoms for certain citizens in order to gain political control and the media is silent.

Sounds like tyranny, indeed.

http://gopthedailydose.com/2013/01/04/new-hampshire-legislator-we-need-to-restrict-freedoms-of-conservatives/

Democrat Ed Rendell: Good Thing About Newtown is That it Was So Horrific

If you needed any more evidence to prove the Left is using the Newtown shooting not to find solutions that will lead to safer schools but instead to push for a long-desired gun control agenda, this is it. Former Democratic Governor Ed Rendell said on MSNBC Friday, "The good thing about Newtown is, it was so horrific that I think it galvanized Americans to a point where the intensity on our side is going to match the intensity on their side. "

Got that? He's glad it was "so horrific" because now people "on his side" can exploit the tragedy for political gain. To Alex Wagner's point about the NRA "disappointing" her, if the organization is so disappointing then why is the White House looking into putting armed police officers in schools as the NRA suggested? Not to mention, when Wagner says she wants "sensible gun laws," she actually means a repeal of the Second Amendment.

MSNBC analyst and soon-to-be host of a daytime television show on the network Alex Wagner is asked what she thinks needs to be removed in the Constitution. Wagner says the second Amendment since it doesn't seem to fit in with the others.
Maher, for his part, thinks gerrymandering and corporate personhood should not be in the Constitution.
Bill Maher, HBO: "Let's ask Alex. What would you change in the Constitution?"
Alex Wagner, Huffington Post: "Well, I'm going to be pilloried for this. I think get rid of the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms. I just think in the grand scheme of the rights that we have; the right of assembly, free speech, I mean, owning a gun does not, it does not tally on the same level as those other Constitutional rights. And being more discreet about who gets to have a firearm and right to kill with a firearm, I think is something that would be in our national interest to revisit that."

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/01/11/democrat-ed-rendell-good-thing-about-newtown-is-that-it-was-so-horrific-n1487451

Top Senate Dems on Unilateral Debt Ceiling Hike: Go For It, Mr. President

There once was a time when Congressional Democrats screeched hysterically about the separation of powers. There once was a time when liberals warned that an 'imperial presidency' would destroy the republic. There once was a time when certain freshman Senators from Illinois voted against raising the debt ceiling as a pointed rebuke of our "reckless fiscal policies." Those times, ladies and gentlemen, have passed:

In a move that will significantly ratchet up the brinksmanship around the debt ceiling, the four members of the Senate Democratic leadership are privately telling the White House that they will give Obama full support if he opts for a unilateral solution to the debt ceiling crisis, a senior Senate Democratic leadership aide tells me. The four Democratic leaders — Senators Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and Patty Murray — have privately reached agreement that continued GOP intransigence on the debt ceiling means the White House needs the space to pursue options for raising it that don’t involve Congress, and that the White House needs to know that Dems will support whatever it decides to do. In a letter to the White House signed by the four leaders that will soon be made public — and was sent over by a source — the Democrats say: “In the event that Republicans make good on their threat by failing to act, or by moving unilaterally to pass a debt limit extension as part of an unbalanced or unreasonable legislation, we believe you must be willing to take any lawful steps to ensure that America does not break its promise and trigger a global economic crisis — without Congressional approval, if necessary.”

"Without Congressional approval" is the key phrase, flinging the door wide open to an executive power grab -- for which Hill Democrats are willing to blithely serve as cheerleaders. As accommodating as this gesture may seem, it may actually cause the White House new headaches. The administration has already ruled out the "14th Amendment" option (wherein Obama simply declares the debt ceiling to be unconstitutional), a move that even liberal scholars like Harvard Law icon Laurence Tribe have dismissed as patently illegal:

The Constitution grants only Congress — not the president — the power “to borrow money on the credit of the United States.” Nothing in the 14th Amendment or in any other constitutional provision suggests that the president may usurp legislative power to prevent a violation of the Constitution. Moreover, it is well established that the president’s power drops to what Justice Robert H. Jackson called its “lowest ebb” when exercised against the express will of Congress. Worse, the argument that the president may do whatever is necessary to avoid default has no logical stopping point. In theory, Congress could pay debts not only by borrowing more money, but also by exercising its powers to impose taxes, to coin money or to sell federal property. If the president could usurp the congressional power to borrow, what would stop him from taking over all these other powers, as well?

This leaves the insane, unpopular, and credibility-shredding trillion dollar coin scheme as the only viable Plan B. Some Democrats are getting slightly anxious over that prospect:

The aide tells me, however, that top Senate Democrats see the 14th amendment option as far preferable politically to the coin. “Of the available options, the coin, on its face, is politically much worse than the others,” he said. “Whatever the legal arguments for and against it, the imagery will be difficult to combat. What better symbol of out-of-control government spending could you have than a trillion dollar coin?”

They're not nervous about the economic consequences of the platinum super coin gambit, mind you; they're worried about how it'd play politically, which aligns perfectly with their attitudes on governance over the last four years. To recap: Faced with the choice of either (a) legislatively raising the debt ceiling with matching dollar-for-dollar spending cuts, (b) flagrantly breaking the law, or (c) descending into banana republic-style madness, Congressional Democrats' preferences appear to be, in order: B, then C, then A. Keep this in mind as Republicans are routinely cast as the irrational, dangerous, "terrorist" hostage-takers throughout the forthcoming dispute.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2013/01/11/top-senate-dems-on-unilateral-debt-ceiling-hike-go-for-it-mr-president-n1487491

Obama's Minions and the 2014 Game Plan

Obama's selections for his second term senior leadership team reveal quite clearly what his game plan is for the next two years - and for the following two, for that matter. His picks, including Susan Rice (thwarted), John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, John Brennan, Jack Lew and Eric Holder, are all cut from the same cloth.
In terms of both domestic and foreign policy, they represent the same hard left viewpoint as their boss. They have virtually no private sector experience, no appreciable record of cooperation or accommodation with Republicans or conservatives and a near total fealty to the redistributionist, statist, multicultural, America-denigrating philosophy that animates and motivates our "transformational" president.

Obama enjoyed control of both the executive and legislative branches of government during his first two years in office. He used it to dramatically advance the transformational philosophy that he espouses. His aim is to refashion America away from its traditional founding as a constitutional republic based on individual liberty, free market capitalism, religiously-grounded morality, limited government and a devotion to the ideal of America as a shining example and promoter of freedom throughout the world.

Instead he envisions a collectivist, Euro-style social welfare state marked by an overwhelmingly powerful central government, a government-controlled corporate economy, a secular, multicultural populace that favors equality over liberty, and a nation whose place among the nations of the world is no more exalted than any other.

It is true that America has been moving in the direction Obama favors for a century - including several major surges to the left under Wilson, FDR and LBJ. Now Obama means to complete the transformation and during his first two years, he had great success along those lines (Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, two ultra-liberal Supreme Court appointments, gays in the military, among others). But the American people threw a monkey wrench in the works in the 2010 midterm elections. However, unlike Bill Clinton, who - when faced with a similar setback - tacked to the right and actually implemented several center-right initiatives (a balanced budget and welfare reform, e.g.), Obama conceived a different response.

He spent the last two years picking fights with Republicans, castigating conservatives, refusing to cooperate at all with the House's efforts to reduce the federal debt and deficit, excoriating his electoral opponent and then blaming the Republicans for the ensuing stalemate. It worked - he got re-elected. But, although he retained the Senate, he failed to take the House.

Therefore, the strategy for the next two years is clearly more of the same. The consequences will be dire: the debt explosion will continue; economic stagnation will persist; our foreign enemies will grow stronger and bolder. And Obama believes - likely correctly - that he can lay all the blame on the House Republicans. The goal then is to retake the House in 2014 and then to complete the transformation of America. Should he succeed, in the years 2014-2016, we shall see: cap and trade, a value added tax, card check, amnesty for illegal aliens, a further dramatic military drawdown, and a slew of other collectivist legislation and regulation that will indeed complete the transformation of the country into the United Socialist States of America.

Three final points:

The American people freely chose the route traveled thus far. It is folly to assume that, without some major wake-up call, they will not complete the choice in 2014.
We have seen the future of Obama's America. It is represented at best by an England that is a zephyr of an international force in comparison to its 300-year history of world power; and at worst by Greece with its declining standard of living, political and cultural paralysis, and civil unrest.
If Congressional Republicans will recognize Obama's strategy, they might begin to devise some tactics to counter it. Attempts to compromise with Obama will either bear no fruit or, like recent examples, will yield poison fruit that will be blamed on Republicans. Conservatives must articulate to the American people what lies in store for them if Obama succeeds. Hopefully, what remains of traditional America (presumably 53%) will awaken and thwart Obama's socialist designs for our country.