Michelle Malkin gives the new 112th congress a bit of advice.

Michelle Malkin gives this 10 point piece of advice. This is one of those lists, one the few, for which we really cannot add improvement. You will want to visit her site here.

1. Manage expectations.

2. Serve the people, not the press.

3. Neutralize the grievance-mongers: Confront the race card early and often.

4. Neutralize Alinsky’s avenging angels: Counter the human shield strategy early and often.

5. Don’t fall prey to Chicken Little Syndrome again. Don’t.

6. Never forget: Government does not “create jobs.” Politicians don’t create jobs. You are there to stop government from killing jobs in the name of “reform,” the “children,” “emergencies,” global warming, hope, change, etc., etc., etc.

7. Obstruction is not a dirty word.

8. Don’t be afraid to say it: Take Your Olive Branch and Shove It, Democrats.

9. Show, don’t tell: Transparency. Accountability. Integrity. When you fail, you’ll be called out. The “R” after your name doesn’t give you immunity. Ever.

10. This is your oath of office. Live it: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

We would add these points:

11. Do not forget the Constitution is not a gimmick, it is this nation's birth certificate and the reason you, as a legislative body, do what you do.

12. Do not be afraid of sending legislation to the Senate, even if it is apparent that it will not be approved. We need Senate members to go "on record" as to their legislative agenda. Let's not forget the 2012 elections are just 23 months from now.

13. Make certain that your opinions and legislative accomplishments get plenty of "press." We need lots of weekend talk from the conservative folks in congress - going head to head with new Obstructionist Party, the 2011 version of the Socialist Democrat Party.

b

Hail to the first bipartisan congress since 2008 and the job facing the new 112th Congress.

More than 350 bills were signed into law by the most partisan president in modern history. Not a single Republican in either the House or the Senate signed onto ObamaCare. All refused to approve the 1.2 trillion dollar Omnibus Bill during the Lame Duck session. And only a handful of Republicans accepted the disgraceful Stimulus bill of February, 2009 -- a bill that proved to be little more than a series of paybacks to union and private corporate institutions supportive of the Socialist Democrat agenda over the years.

With the elections of November, 2010, 22 state legislatures flipped to "Republican." A record setting 682 state congressional figures moved into the GOP column. A Republican record of 6 new Senators were moved into the Upper House [the Senate] and a historic 63 Republicans were swept into office in the Lower House, giving House Republicans a super majority.

The future for the GOP must not be about "pay back." Rather, it must be about reasonable reform, the undoing of poorly written legislation and the institution of serious solutions. If the GOP is eventually successful in the repeal of ObamaCare, it must deal with the continuing problem that is healthcare cost. Offering "tax credits," as the McCain contingency has proposed in the past, will not be the end all to this problem. Honestly, we need real solutions.

There is much to be done by our first bipartisan congress in years.

Our borders remain unprotected. That needs resolution . . . . and to hell with "sanctuary cities."

Homeland Security is a joke and we all know it. Understand that not a single arrest has been made by TSA since its inception, back in 2001. The Obama interrogation strategy that is the HIG (High value Interrogation Groups) have never been finalized. We have no effective interrogation teams in the works, as I write this post. None. We are not safer than before this congress took office.

The use of the nonGovernment insitution, the United States Federal Reserve, needs a serious case of transparency. Understand that this is not a Federal institution, despite its name. It is private and its books are closed to public or outside review. It manages all monetary issues with regard to the setting of interest rates, the supply of paper currency, and much of the national lending policy. The Federal Reserve System was created by Congress in 1913 "to provide for the establishment of Federal reserve banks, to furnish an elastic currency, to afford means of rediscounting commercial paper, to establish a more effective supervision of banking in the United States, and for other purposes." Again, it is private and its policies, as such, are not reviewed by anyone in the Federal Government. There needs to change. We are not talking about a major overhaul of the Fed at this writing. We have in mind an annual audit of the Federal Reserve by committee members at some level of Congress. After all, we are talking about our money, the people's money. And we should know what is going on with it. Those who object are numerous and powerful and using the Fed to accomplish their own agendas, both personal and political. That needs to stop.

TARP needs to come to an end. It has been used by the Democrat congress as a slush fund for the past two years. It was a 700 billion dollar allocation to be used for Toxic Asset Relief. Not a penny went to that purpose. The TARP legislation was written by one man, Henry Paulson, and was instituted without legislative reviews and with no monetary boundaries. As a result, we believe that more than 24 trillion dollars flowed through TARP to the banking industry.

The whole mess that is Fannie and Freddie needs serious attention, as well. Was money from either mortgage institution used to pay back the GM debt of 6.2 billion dollars in January of 2010? The bill was paid. Where in the world did GM get the money, an interesting question in view of the fact that GM had not made a profit in any quarter of the previous year (2009). When Darrell Issa, the new financial Sheriff in the House, commented on the "corruption" of the Obama administration, is this part of what he had in mind? Time will tell. Certainly, we need to know.

It would be nice if we had an actual document called "the budget." The Dems refused to write a budget for the fiscal year of 2010. It was due, by law, last March. Not so much as an outline of the budget was drafted. None of the 13 appropriation bills used to fund the government were ever brought up in committee. Nothing was done as relates to the 2010 budget and we are four months into the new 2010 fiscal year. Understand that this failure was a Democrat election strategy to avoid criticism during the midterm elections. You know what this means, right? That the Dems have known since the beginning of 2010, they were in for a major butt kicking come the November elections. Again, the failure to write a budget was by design, an election strategy, to avoid their lust for spending from becoming an election issues. We are thinking that this strategy did not work out so well for the Dems. Turns out their spending excesses were no secret.

Point of post: the new 112th congress has much to do in its first six months, things that should have been done months and even years ago.

It is pretty incredible. 350 bills were passed in two years and yet, it feels like nothing was done.

We hope that is about to change.

Update: End notes

1. Cf. This Nation and its discussion on the issue of the Federal Reserve.

2. Here is an awesome site explaining the Federal Reserve. Note the name of the site and bookmark it: Federal Reserve, Kids Page.

3. And this site gives a short answer to the question,
What does the Federal Reserve do anyway?

4. Related references confirming the 24 trillion dollar price tag we mentioned in our article"

MSNBC gives us this number here.
Washington Times confirms with this article.
Marketplace.org confirms 23.7 trillion in this article.

And why have you not heard of this news before? Midknight Review has been way ahead of the pack on this one and have been reporting this excess since March of 2009.

5. With regard to the special interrogation unts known as HIG.

Obama prohibited CIA interrogations in April of 2009 and
installed HIG units as policy in August of '09.

Rather than going with CIA units, the new system of interrogations will include the FBI, primarily, along with the DOD and the CIA. cf Brightbart.

Time.com has reported the failure of the Administration in the forming of these interrogation units. None of the terrorists captured during the first two years of Obama have been interrogated by a HIG unit -- we believe this is because Obama has not yet put these units in place, after a year and a half of promising to do so.
d

Pelosi goes out with an outrageious misstatment of the facts.

She said the following just yesterday. These are her last words as a national leader. As such, it is appropriate, we think, that her words constitute a blatant lie.

“Deficit reduction has been a high priority for us. It is our mantra, pay-as-you-go. Unfortunately, that will be changed, now. ”

Understand that within four hours of passing "paygo," Pelosi's House was already working on spending bills that were not paid for; Democrats using the fear of "crisis" and "emergency" to circumvent their own pay as you go law.

More than this, all of the Bush heavy spending (2008) was done under Pelosi's leadership as Speaker of the House. The financial crisis beginning in 2008 occurred on her watch and under the supervision of Democrat banking committees in both the Senate and the House of Represntatives. In fact, under Pelosi, the debt ceiling has grown from 8.6 trillion to 14.1 trillion dollars.

She became Speaker of the House in January of 2007 and has overseen 1.5 trillion dollars of debt per year while she and Harry Reid were in charge of Congress. Certainly, Bush was the President for much of this time, but it has been a Democrat Congress for four years and we must never forget this fact. Bush, unlike Obama, did not rule as a dictator.
c

Notes about the debt ceiling and the surprising history of the Democrats.

Guess who said this about raising the debt ceiling: "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better."

It was Mr. Obama . . . . . . . . . . back in 2006 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . just before he voted "no" on raising the debt ceiling.

Indeed, he voted "no" in 2006 and didn't bother to show up for similar votes in 2007 and 2008 (he was busy running for president). In fact, in 2006 all Senate Democrats voted "no" to increasing the debt ceiling. Eventually, the ceiling was raised but not before the Democrats protested with their collective "no !!"

As usual, what was reasonable to them in the recent past is not the case, today. Beginning this past weekend, the Democrat talking points regarding "no" votes on raising the debt ceilings include "catastrophe," "GOP playing suicide with our credit rating," "morally reprehensible," "political grandstanding," and "gimmick politics." This is what we can expect to hear until the debt ceiling issue is resolved.

Is the GOP planning on not voting for an increase? Of course not. Is the GOP planning on voting on the increase without dealing with the government's lust for spending. No. And, the two positions are not mutualky exclusive.

Last night on FoxNews' Hannity, 18 "freshman" congressional people (House of Representative folk are referred to as "comgressmen" while Senators are referred to as "Senators") were guests on the show . It was most encouraging. These Newbies come from the business community, the kitchen, the private sector at all levels. They are Democrats and [especially] Republicans (9 new Democrats and 87 new Republicans). They are serious about spending controls and fully understand the message sent them with the midterm elections, even if the leadership and Obama have missed the point of those elections.

Changes that should have been effected by the Democrats of the 111th congress are about to be made. Changes that should have been effected by the Republican congresses of the past are about to be made.

We are excited about the future. The conservative bloggosphere has much work to do and the readership must not stop with their letters to the editors, letters to their representative, phone calls, and the evangelizing of their friends and family for the conservative GOP.

Understand that "GOP" is not the magic word, here. Rather, "conservative" is closer to the point. It is just that the GOP already has a conservative base. Democrat conservatives are nowhere to be found.

The debt ceiling is proof of a broken system. It is kind of like getting a second and third and fourth and fifth credit card to pay off your other credit cards. It can be said that this strategy works, but only while the monthly payments can be made. The debt ceiling is at the "fifth card" level, using our example. Folks who care about "credit ratings" at Moodys and the S & P tell us that our debt service (those pesky monthly payments) will rise to 12% of GDP within the next two years, and, at that point, our nation's credit will be effected. A downgrade of our credit from AAA to "A" or worse, will change the amount of interest we will have to offer to get people to buy our bonds; a snowball effect will have been put into place at that point, increasing the structural debt for coming Administrations and bringing an end to the soft recovery we are now experiencing. Income and expense must be brought into balance. Now is better than later.
m
m

It is not the debt ceiling that needs attention so much as it is our debt service costs. Here is the story

Here is a chart revealing spending under both parties. In the end, both are responsible for the current debt totals. Note that 2008 and 2009 (although brown in color) belong to the Bush era but are colored "Democrat Brown" because these are debt years of the Democrat Congress the last two years of Bush. Understand that all spending originates in the House of Representatives. None of it originates with the president, whoever he/she might be. None.


As you may know, there is a huge fight pending in Congress over the debt ceiling. It is currently set at 14.2 trillion. We will be at the level, per design of the 111th Democrat Congress, within the next 8 weeks. We hit 14 trillion two days ago.

There is talk of refusing to increase this limit on spending without attaching significant spending cuts. After all, that was an important part of the message sent to Congress 9 weeks ago. The Dems are screaming. Their claim is that the Republicans are "playing chicken" with the financial well being of the United States.

Lots of talk from the Big Spenders on the Left of a pending "catastrophe" .

What is being missed in all this talk of debt ceilings and catastrophes is the fact that Moody's and the folks at the S & P are telling us that the actual villain to be feared is a thing called "debt service cost." It is currently costing us a little over 9% of our GDP to pay the fees and interest on our debt. When that number gets to 12% (nominally), services such as Moody's will lower our nation's credit rating and suddenly, bonds that are being sold at 4% interest will be increased to 7-9 percent on a 10 year note. That becomes a part of the structural debt for the Administration of the future just as the short term bond sales of the Clinton Administrations have effected deficit totals in the Bush and Obama Administrations.

When it is all said and done, continued spending as reflected in debt ceiling increases will be the cause for true financial catastrophe. Most economists say we have two years remaining before our debt service costs rise to 12% of GDP.
Point of post: to continue to ignore spending cuts as we glibly raise the debt ceiling will be the very cause for national financial collapse.
One additional point: while the Dems are screaming about voting against raising the debt ceiling, this is exactly what Senate Democrats did in 2006 -- as a collective, Senate Democrats voted against raising the debt ceiling . . . . . . Obama included. Yes, he voted against raising the debt ceiling in 2006. 2007 and 2008 ?? Oh, he skipped these votes; too busy running for president.

End notes:
1. A congressional article outlining the danger of continued debt.
http://culberson.house.gov/our-biggest-national-security-threat/

2. Question: did those black birds die because they hit the debt ceiling, as some are reporting?

3. I have spent considerable time trying to figure out what exactly would happen in the event that, at some point, the Treasury literally had no cash to pay interest on the debt, redeem maturing securities, pay Social Security benefits and so on. Some people believe that the Treasury has an almost unlimited ability to fudge the problem indefinitely. But I know that there are analysts at the GAO who are very concerned about hitting a hard limit on the Treasury’s legal authority not long after the debt ceiling is breached. The law is very unclear and has never been tested in court. . . . this and more can be read here.

4. Another excellent article on this issue is one found at the Financial Times: US's triple-A rating under threat.

How is "Sarah Palin's Alaska" doing? Much better than you are being told.

You will read stories in the Marxist Hate Media that Palin's TLC 8 week series just didn't do that well.

Really? Week 1- 4.93 million. Week 2 - 3 million. Week 3 - 3.8 million. Week 4 - 2.8 million.

Make note: no program on "Liberal Cable" billed as news/documentary scored anywhere close to the numbers posted above. None. In fact, while Keith Olbermann is busy mouthing off over at MSNBC, his numbers are 40% of the Palin numbers. CNN comes in at 30% of her average audience.

The fact of the matter is this: the show continues to be a huge success in the world of cable documentaries.

This Sunday marks the end of this series and promises to attract another huge crowd. On the West Coast, the show airs at 6 pm.

Looking forward to this last show. She has put the beauty of the Alaskan country side on the map forever. We will look for financial impact statements sure to come in the approaching weeks and months. It has to be good for the Great State of Alaska.

Psalms 109 verse 8 seems somewhat appropriate.

"Let his days be few - and let another take his office."

Obama has no time to rule alone. We are facing a vast Left Wing Conpiracy.

"Speeches, statements and remarks: Since taking office: 883" and with these words, CBS News began an article detailing Obama's comings and goings. Some facts may be correct but his personal appearances numbers are grossly understated. From end of year reports for 2009, we know that he made 726 personal appearances either in news conferences, daily radio reports, town hall meetings (all carefully controlled), campaign speeches and policy statements (58 speeches on healthcare, alone, in 51 days for year 2010 - cf. cBS article below).

We believe his total personal appearance count is count is closer to 1600. The cBS News article allows for personal appearances on every day of 2009-2010 except 45. That's 685 days in two years in which Obama made 1 to 4 appearances of some kind. Understand that we include appearances with foreign dignitaries both home and aboard. It is not a stretch to allow for 1600 appearances.

According to the same cBS News article linked to in "End Notes," Obama boarded either Air Force One or Marine One a total of 714 times and flew somewhere at the cost of 150,000 per hour. Such a statistic helps to support our conclusion.

Add in the cBS count of 58 days spent on vacation and 57 half days playing golf and you have a president who does not spend time in the White House doing his job but he signed into law a total of 329 laws since January of 2009. There is no count available as to the total number of new regulatory laws but it has to be in the law "thousands." Under ObamaCare, alone, there will be 160 new agencies, all governed via rules and regulations.

Point of post: Obama governs with the help of a vast collusion of radical Leftists. He simply does not have the time to govern differently and the above is evidence of our point. Understand, then, that "getting rid of Obama" changes very little. The whole bunch of these radical Leftists need to be gone.

They spent two full years pretending they were the only ones who mattered. Now, they are whining because they are not.

There are committees on the Hill that are all about investigations and subpoenas and they are in existence per the United States Code - in other words, they exist for the purpose of keeping the Executive Branch honest and the Federal System functioning as prescribed by law.

You have never read an objection from this editor with regard to investigating Bush, even for "war crimes." If he is not guilty of such. there is nothing to fear. Of course, it is not the investigation, itself , that is the problem. Rather, tt is how the fact of the particular investigation is reported and the biased reporting of same in the radicalized media - whether Left or Right.

Midknight Review and this editor will report on the facts of the various investigations and any resulting final judgments. We are partisan but not bigoted.

Further, we will continue to report on our conclusions as to the honesty of this president but will not confuse our opinion with any of the investigative committees.

Expect the 2011 Democrats and their supposed leader, Barack Obama, to turn into the Party of Whiners. Michelle Malkin uses the following "seal" often. We intend to do likewise. Expect the Dems to ignore the fact that committee investigations are required by law. Instead, they plan a two prong attack in the coming months: whine about the investigations and oppose all of the Conservative agenda presented in the House. They will be the new "party of no."


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Obama's agenda will be a little different. Of course, there will be the proverbial whining, but more than taking a "no" stance, Obama will be hell bent on circumventing Congress and "legislating" via the powers of the various Federal agencies. He has already tried this tactic. Now, with the new and improved 112th Congress, the only avenue available for advancement of his Socialist/One World agenda is the dictatorial use of agency regulations. This strategy is grossly unAmerican boarding on traitorists. Obama does not have the legal right to function as a dictator as he misuses existing law ala the likes of a Hugo Chavez (Venezuela). He is attempting his "fundamental change" via whatever comes to mind. "The ends justify the means," with this guy, and he must not be allowed to [politically] survive this onslaught on the United States of America. Coup by regulatory fiat is now the main thrust of his plans for this country.

In Venezuela, Chavez has taken control of the Internet, the oil industry and the nation's educational system. Along the same lines, Obama is attempting control of the Internet via FTC and FCC regulations. He buried educational controls within the wording of the Health Care bill, and East Coast drilling has come to a virtual halt via his [mis] use of the permit process. He has increased presidential controls over the banking industry with the passage of FenReg and is using the EPA to establish parts of the Cap and Trade laws he had hoped to pass through Congress.

He is a stinking menace to this country because he refuses to play by the rules. We didn't like Clinton, but Bubba governed by the rules. Circumventing Congressional review, under the pretense that "the American people want to get things done," is a dictatorial function under the guise of pretense. It is dishonest from a Constitutional perspective and illegitimate for the very reason.

Understand that the DC Court of Appeals, in charge of the judicial oversight of the regulatory agencies, has already told the FCC it had no legal authority to press for a thing called "net neutrality." Obama has ignored that decision and is pressing for that control, using different working in the new regulations.

When we speak of him being a "stinking menace," this is why. But, again, our obvious bias will be softened when reporting on the conclusions of committee investigations.

Did you know there is a House committee that is required, by law, to investigate the Executive Branch ? We are thinking Obama didn't know this.

Darrell Issa is a congressman from Southern California. He is a no-nonsense Establishment Republican who leans hard to a sensible conservative position. In his case, "Establishment" is good and for this reason: Darrell Issa is not new to Washington. He understands solutions and how to get there. That knowledge will serve him well beginning January 5th - this coming Wednesday.

He will be the new Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Understand that this committee is in charge of the oversight of the executive branch [that's the president, folks] in Congress. Its primary function is the probing of the financial habits of the executive branch and the processes used by the presidential office in accomplishing his agenda, especially as this is applied to the use of government funds.* In addition to its investigative relationship to the executive branch, Issa and his committee are in charge of the conduct of the federal civil service. All of this is defined in Title 5 of the United States Code. **

As relates to the actual and prescribed function of this committee, Issa had this to say: "It's more of an accounting function than legal function. It's more about the inspector generals than it is about lawyers in the White House. And the sooner the administration figures out that the enemy is the bureaucracy and the wasteful spending, not the other party, the better off we'll be."

It is our opinion that this committee will play a central role in the politics of the 112th congress. Mr. Obama has made it clear that he intends to accomplish more in the next two years than he did in the previous two years by using the regulatory powers of the various agencies under his purview. In other words, Obama intends to circumvent congress as much as possible and rule as a dictator of sorts.

We have a president, for the first time in modern history, who demonstrates no respect for Constitutional processes and has little regard for the need to be bipartisan. There has never been a time when the services of this committee are more important. Understand that the coming investigations are the functionary responsibilities of this House Oversight Committee as defined by law. It is not the function of a partisan GOP congress, although you will hear nothing but this accusation for the next two years. We are saying that Darrell Issa's job is investigating the executive branch of government. It is his job. During the past two years, this committee accomplished virtually nothing. That is about to change.

We leave you with this Issa quote: "The sooner the administration figures out that the enemy is the bureaucracy and the wasteful spending, not the other party, the better off we'll be," Issa on "Fox News Sunday."

End Notes:
1. *Washington Post: its definition of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
2. **There are currently 50 "titles" in the United States Code. The Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the House of Representatives revises this document every six years. The last revision was completed in 2006.
3. See Wikipedia and its discussion of "civil service."
4. See Issa'a bio here. He has been in congress since 2001.