Join us for a live chat with embattled Rapid City Councilman Sam Kooiker at 5 p.m. Monday.

By Kevin Woster

Talk about another  big Saturday night: me, the TV, the Tea Party convention and Sarah Palin.

Really, could you ask for anything more?

Apparently Mary could. She spent the evening in the den, quietly reading. I don’t get it.

In case you, too, found something else to do this weekend besides watch C-SPAN coverage of the Tea Party bash in Nashville, let me fill you in: They’re not happy, about the size of government, the guy in the White House, the people in Congress - especially the liberals - the health care reform plan and the national debt.

They’d like more pop in the Second Amendment, less government in their lives and more God in their government. They’d also like a few more documents on the whereabouts of  Barack Obama at the time of his birth. One speaker spent a fair bit of time, in fact, comparing the birth certificates of Jesus Christ and Obama, concluding that The Risen Savior - Jesus, I mean, although Obama rose pretty well after that New Hampshire primary - had much better credentials on his corporeal entry point.

There was lots of discussion about how to make the Tea Party movement more effective, and how to inspire more members to run for office at all levels. And there was talk about the future of the movement, which keynote speaker Palin (who says she’s giving back her $100,000 speaking fee, now that the miserable mainstream media dogs - whoof, whoof - made such a fuss about it) considers to be quite bright.

“The Tea Party movement is the future of our politics,” she said.

It certainly seems to be the most energized part of American politics today, just as the Democratic Party was two years ago.

But, the future of American politics? I wonder.

By Kevin Woster

You guys can help me with this. I know you can.

How is it that the nation’s last monthly employment figures show a loss of 20,000 job (which is bad, but not nearly as bad as it was a year ago, which is good) and yet unemployment dropped from 10 percent to 9.7 percent (which is just plain good, if somewhat confusing, at least to me…)

But for those not so confused, is this another hopeful sign of economic recovery? Or a mixed message that means little?

And if you’re the mind of Wall Street, how do you react?

By Kevin Woster

What are they up to these days over at the Rapid City Council?

Censuring Sam.

Or trying to, at least.

As you might have read already in todays Journal, or on its marvelously diverse Web site (that’s a shout out to you, Todd Williams!), the council seems to be trying to censure Councilman Sam Kooiker for, as near as I can tell, being Sam Kooiker.

He’s a rabble-rouser, that guy, a pain in the bureaucracy who challenges authority, questions policy and pesters both fellow council members and the city staff they oversee.

Sometimes he gets carried away. Sometimes he exaggerates. Sometimes he gets things wrong. Sometimes he gums up the process and slows down decision making.

And sometime, well, he’s right, in ways that matter to the process and the public.

Whether he was or wasn’t right in this case isn’t clear to me, yet. Neither is whether this censure is merited, or makes sense from either a good-government or good-politics standpoint - two realities that are often mutually exclusive.

What is clear is that the council and some city employees are frustrated enough by Sam being Sam to spend $10,000 on a outside investigation - on top of $7,000 for a previous inquiry - into his behavior. It all centers on the manner in which Kooiker challenged public works and transit officials over alleged government waste. Council members were unhappy enough about Kooiker’s tactics to  approve putting an unusual resolution of censure on the action agenda for an upcoming meeting.

The council voted 8-1 in favor of the resolution, with Kooiker not voting and Ron Weifenbach voting “no.” It will be considered at a Feb. 16 council meeting.

Two things are certain: It’ll be entertaining.  And Sam will be Sam.

By Kevin Woster

I’ve looked. I just can’t find it.

Where’s the downside of creating a bipartisan fiscal responsibility commission?

What’s the point of not voting for Kent Conrad’s proposed amendment doing just that last week to legislation to increase the debt ceiling? It went down, 53-46-1, with some Democrats straying to the “nays” and some Republicans going with the “yeas.”

Tim Johson was a “yea.”  So was Harry Reid. John Thune was a “nay. ” So was Mitch McConnell.

McConnell’s vote was particularly interesting, since he has professed support for the Conrad amendment - or at least the same idea proposed by  Conrad and Republican Judd Gregg - in the past, and critizied President Obama was not embracing it.

Obama finally did, last week. Then McConnell voted against it. So did Thune.

It wasn’t universal in the GOP Senate caucus. Bond, Alexander, Chambliss, Collins, Corker, Cornyn, Enzi, Graham and, of course, Gregg were among the GOP senators who offered support.

Why not Thune? Here’s his answer, provided by the senator’s staff:

“Since taking office last year, President Obama and Congressional Democrats have increased discretionary spending by more than 20 percent, which is six times the rate of inflation. Rather than punting the tough choices needed to clean up this mess to this type of a commission, which would likely result in tax increases versus reforms to government programs, Congress should live up to its responsibility and obligation to American taxpayers and get our fiscal house in order.”

By Randall Rasmussen

President Barack Obama presented Congress with a $3.83 trillion budget proposal on Monday, with a record deficit of $1.56 trillion.

Obama defended his budget, saying the spending increase was necessary to create jobs and bring the nation out of a recession.

The budget he inherited last year from President George W. Bush and the overwhelmingly Democratic Congress included a then-record $1.3 trillion deficit.

Despite the record deficit for the last two years, Obama said the country couldn’t continue to spend money it doesn’t have.

“We simply cannot continue to spend as if deficits don’t have consequences, as if waste doesn’t matter, as if the hard-earned tax dollars of the American people can be treated like Monopoly money, as if we can ignore this challenge for another generation,” Obama said.

Yes, he really did say that with a straight face.

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., said: “I support the President’s budget proposal to freeze spending, and applaud him for taking that step, but believe that we can and must do more to cut spending and bring down the debt.  I am pleased that last week, the Senate passed tough new ‘pay-as-you-go’ rules that will require Congress to spend within its means.  This has long been a priority of mine and of the Blue Dog Coalition, along with a fiscal commission to recommend changes to exploding growth in entitlement spending.  These are both common sense tools that have bipartisan support and they should gain the backing of anyone who’s serious about fiscal responsibility.”

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said: “President Obama’s attempt to recast himself as fiscally responsible comes a year late and falls a few trillion dollars short. Since taking office last year, the President and Congressional Democrats have increased discretionary spending by more than 20 percent, which is six times the rate of inflation. This reckless approach of more borrowing, more spending and raising taxes to expand the growth and reach of government does little to create jobs. The Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats must look beyond government spending as the primary vehicle for job creation and economic growth.”

The budget is filled with the typical rosy scenario assumptions, such as a 3 percent growth in GDP this year and at least 4.3 percent in 2011 and beyond. Also, it assumes about $650 billion in cap and trade tax revenues from an energy bill that is all but dead in Congress.

It’s a budget that spends as if deficits don’t have consequences, as if waste doesn’t matter, as if the hard-earned tax dollars of the American people can be treated like Monopoly money, as if we can ignore the national debt for another generation.

By Kevin Woster

It’s tough to figure out.

It always seems like a great idea, limiting cash in political campaigns. But there’s that pesky First Amendment protection of political speech to consider.

I’ve been considering it a lot since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations cannot be barred from spending on independent advertising to promote or oppose political candidates, including during those last crucial weeks of a campaign cycle.

It’s a change from current law, where corporations are limited in candidate campaigns to those wink-wink, nod-nod “issue” advertisements that end up asking voters to “call Sen. Johnson” or “call Sen. Thune” and tell him that Americans don’t want Socialism-Fascism to take over their lives, or, conversely, to thank him for saving our nation with his past votes.

Stuff like that.

It’s an implied endorsement that is more difficult to make, and less effective with voters, than simply: “Vote against Sen. What’sHisName because he failed us on these issues and might actually be a being from another planet…”

Clearly, the ruling gives corporations the ability to turn a close election in the closing weeks with an expensive advertising barrage. Clearly, that’s a concern - for anyone, I would think.

Additional concern surrounds the question of foreign corporations, and whether this could lead to their financial involvement in our candidate campaigns. That’s an issue yet to be addressed, as David Broder points out.

On the issue already decided, however, you have to wonder if corporations will run candidate advertising blitzes in the coming elections here in South Dakota - particularly the U.S. House and governor’s races, where both parties have competitive candidates.

And, if so, who would those corporations most likely be?

By Todd Williams
Daniel J. Mitchell has an interesting piece on the Cato Institute’s Web site titled “Who’s To Blame for the Massive Deficit?”
The answer might come as shock to some, especially since Cato generally leans to the right.
With pie graph in hand, Mitchell essentially says that of the past year specifically, the state of the current budget deficit is 96 percent Bush’s fault and 4 percent Obama’s.
Even with Obama’s free-wheeling spendfest for programs such as the stimulus bill, the 2009 omnibus appropriation’s bill and programs such as Cash for Clunkers, Mitchell estimates that Obama’s share is “about $140 billion out of a $3.5 trillion budget.”
He uses the following analogy, saying it “is like a relief pitcher who enters a game in the fourth inning trailing 19-0 and allows another run to score. The extra run is nothing to cheer about, of course, but fans should be far angrier with the starting pitcher.”
He also notes that although  Bush may have been the Rick Ankiel of budget-deficit politics,  “Obama has been serving up softballs to the special interests in Washington, so his earned run average may actually wind up being worse than his predecessor’s. He promised change, but it appears that Obama wants to be Bush on steroids.”

Good stuff

By Kevin Woster

Can it really be? The  U.S. Senate has followed the House and passed legislation that requires future spending increases to be matched by cuts elsewhere or new revenue sources.

It’s kinda like, well, kinda like, hmm… let me think.

Wait, I got it. It’s kinda like balancing your checkbook at home. So why hasn’t  Congress been able to act responsibly with our federal bucks  just like all of us regular folks do with our own?

Oh, wait, they do. They spend beyond their means just like most flat-screen-loving Americans do. And they build up a powerful interest burden, too.

It’s just that “they” do it with “our” money on stuff that’s supposed to benefit “us.”

But maybe that will all change now that the Senate has followed the House to approve PayGo.

That’s possible. Isn’t it?

By Randall Rasmussen

President Barack Obama gave his first State of the Union Address Wednesday night.

You may read the full text here.

Here is the text of the Republican response delivered by Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell.

What does Mount Blogmore think?

By Todd Williams

OK, so I’ve seen a number of spoofs on this scene and the subtitles, but this one made me chuckle a little more than the others, if nothing but for the final line.

By Randall Rasmussen

President Barack Obama will deliver his first State of the Union Address Wednesday night before Congress and a national television audience. White House aides say he will call for a three-year freeze on spending for domestic agencies.

On Tuesday, the Senate rejected Obama’s plan to form a bipartisan task force on the deficit. The vote came after the Congressional Budget Office projected a $1.35 trillion deficit this year — $4,500 for every American. That means the federal government is borrowing 40 percent of the cost of its spending programs this year.

In advance of Wednesday’s speech, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., has written a letter to President Obama, which was published Tuesday by Politico.com, titled “It’s the budget, Mr. President.” You can read the letter here.

Thune writes: “The exploding national debt will mean higher interest rates and inflation, diminished private-sector investment and job-crushing tax hikes. Unless addressed, each of these threats could significantly impede a recovery and jeopardize our nation’s long-term growth prospects.”

Thune proposes three steps to address the growing deficit: Holding discretionary spending to 2008 levels; vetoing pork-filled spending bills; and ending the Troubled Relief Asset Program (TARP).

Also on Monday, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., went Obama and Thune one better by calling for cutting the budget by at least $20 billion. The Wall Street Journal wrote an editorial on Coburn’s proposal.

After presiding over an unprecedented increase in the deficit and national debt in a so far fruitless effort to jumpstart the economy, Obama apparently plans to remake his image as a deficit hawk.

It seems clear that the president’s advisers are worried about the 2010 election and are responding to the tea party movement and its members’ concerns about deficit spending and the mounting national debt.

President Obama will unveil his new suit of clothes Wednesday night.

By Kevin Woster

The finely tuned Mount Blogmore machine will be in the shop for a couple of hours this morning, getting a tune up.

So, it’ll be up on the hoist and unusable from 10 a.m. mountain to about noon.

I couldn’t tell you what or why. They don’t give me specifics, or allow me around moving computer parts or software packages in the Journal’s online garage.

It could have something to do with RSS feeds, or RSVPs, or assembling cookies, or maybe dunking donuts.

Hey, speaking of which, Ryan Soderlin just walked in with a couple boxes of from Jerry’s.  Gotta go. There’s a chocolate-topped over there with my name on it.

Talk to you in a couple of hours.

UPDAAAAATE: Apparently, I should have said a couple of days. Or so.

All the RCJ blogs were moved this week. I don’t know why. They saved Blogmore because it’s the oldest, with most stuff in it, and needed to be moved on its own. It was a bigger job than they thought. And they’re off for the weekend.

So, it’ll be next Monday, at least. Meanwhile, any new thread I put up will be lost in the move. Also, they’re not sure whether new comments between now and then to existing threads will survive the move, either.

So, comment with that in mind, if you choose.

By Kevin Woster

So, Scott Brown was caught up in the moment and said something stupid.

By now, you probably know about the Massachusett’s senator-elect and his lame-brained but probably well-intended jokes, during his acceptance speech, about the availability of his two daughters.

I can write that off as a dumb dad moment. I’ve had my share, although certainly not in the way Brown did. (If anything, my joke would have been about the absolute unavailability of my “little girl,” regardless of her age. That’s the humorously protective perspective most of us dads have.)

One of Brown’s daughters seemed to take her dad’s joking well. The other? Well, based on her tense smile, I think Sen.-elect Brown has some serious apologizing ahead.

But Glenn Beck? He just has to apologize to the world - for making a “dead intern” joke, and then laughing about it.

Beck was castigating Brown for his comments about his daughters, in a joking way. It was mostly playful. Then he went too far, as Beck likes to do. Way too far.

He somehow twisted the dumb dad moment into an insinuation that Brown could run on the wild side, and talked about  him needing a “chastity belt” when he gets to Washingon. And then Beck said we’ll end up with “a dead intern.”

There are lines, aren’t there, even among the diminished behavioral standards of political screamers? And surely Beck crossed one in bringing up the murder of Chandra Levy, and doing it (check the video) while laughing.

Then repeating it. While laughging.

It’s Brown, not Beck, who should be offended in all this. That’s a pretty nasty insinuation, even if supposedly in jest.

 But the worst insult was to Levy’s memory, and to her surviving family and friends.

Surely, Beck will apologize, eventually.

By Randall Rasmussen

Massachusetts State Sen. Scott Brown has won the special election to complete the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s term. In an improbable upset, a Republican is now the U.S. senator for Massachusetts.

Remember, that Massachusetts is the most-liberal state in the country – it was the only state that George McGovern won in 1972 – which makes Brown’s victory all that more astonishing.

The most telling moment of the campaign was during a televised debate against Democrat Martha Coakley when the moderator asked Brown how someone occupying “Kennedy’s seat” could vote against health care, Brown answered: “It’s not Kennedy’s seat; it’s not the Democrats’ seat; it’s the people’s seat.”

What does Mount Blogmore think? What does it mean for the 2010 elections and the Obama agenda?

Join us at 3 p.m., Tuesday for a live chat with Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin.

By Kevin Woster

It’s a tough job, leading the free world.

It’s shows these days in Barack Obama’s approval ratings. Americans are pretty much evenly split on whether the president is doing a good job. And half or less say they’d vote for him again.

Those who couldn’t stand him before still can’t. Some of those who loved him before don’t now. And some of the middle-roaders are wondering if he’s trying to do to much too soon, rather than managing the wars and getting the economy rebuilt.

It’s easy to conclude, based on the president’s fallen rankings with the public, that he and his presidency are in serious trouble.

Well, maybe. Or maybe not.

Bob Woodard provided some interesting perspective on that on Meet the Press this morning. He looked back at the Reagan presidency after a year, and an analysis by Lou Cannon.

Essentially, Cannon looked at Reagan’s first-year struggles, fading popularity and upcoming problems and concluded he was unlikely even to run again. Well, Reagan seemed to do OK after that.

Woodward indelicately labeled the argument that Obama’s first year has doomed him to one term as “crap.” That’s overstated in a passionate way that leaves Woodward open to “the liberal mainstream media tag.”

But clearly the “doomed presidency” them is premature, and at this point unfair. Presidencies and political futures aren’t decided in the first year. They’re begun.

David Broder makes that point in typically understated style in his latest column, arguing that the young president has built a base that will define his first term, eventually. But it’s the economy that Obama must fix, and soon, Broder argues.

Former Bush adviser Karen Hughes argued fairly on Meet the Press that Obama tried to take on too many issues in a country that was demanding, fearfully, that jobs and the economy be saved, first and foremost.

Bush and Obama did a lot to preserve the banking industry, which - like it or not - is crucial to our economy and overall well being. But there’s a great deal of work there left to do. That includes more fiscal responsibility, and changes that could include a bipartisan panel to tackle that huge issue.

George Will has a typically intellectual look at that in his column to day.

Complicated? Oh, my, yes.

Unclear? Absolutely.

Simple. Not on your life.

Tough duty, that White House gig.

The next year will tell us more than the first about whether Barack Obama really is the “yes, we can” guy he promised to be.

By Kevin Woster

Ed Schultz came close to blowing a blood vessel last night.

He’s pretty worked up about this Massachusetts deal.

And given the situation there, and its potential weight in the U.S. Senate, he probably has good reason to go all Limbaugh on the airwaves.

Democratic Attorney General Martha Coakley is in trouble. The presumed successor to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy is in a neck-and-neck race with Massachusetts state Sen. Scott Brown, a Republican who wasn’t given a chance to pull a GOP  upset until, oh, about now.

The big Democratic guns - Bill Clinton today, Obama tomorrow - are blasting away in a blue state you might have presumed to be secure.

One Democratic insider said, as reported by the Washington Post: “we overestimated the state’s Democraticness and underestimated the national mood.”

Will it cost the the Democrats that crucial 60th vote in the Senate?

Right now, it looks like a toss-up.

And it also makes you wonder what the surprisingly close race in far-off Massachusetts could say about the 2010 congressional campaign  here at home.

You can bet Chris Nelson and Blake Curd will be watching.

So will Stephanie Herseth Sandlin.

By Kevin Woster

Not bad. Not bad at all.

State Rep. Blake Curd of Sioux Falls will be reporting about $180,000 in campaign funds raised in the fourth quarter of 2009 for his U.S. House run.

That’s serious change for a first-term state legislator challenging a more experienced GOP regular, Secretary of State Chris Nelson, in the Republican U.S. House primary.

And only $9,600 of it came from Curd and his wife. That’s the maximum amount two donors could contribute for the primary and the general election. Obviously, Curd isn’t bound by those restrictions, but he liked the political symbolism.

“He thought he should give the same amount that he’s asking of his biggest supporters,” Joshua Shields, Curd’s campaign manager, said.

Shields figures this says something about Curd’s viability, too.

“I think this quarter’s numbers show that there’s momentum behind our campaign and that Blake is pretty good about making a case for his candidacy,” Shields said.

Some of the money comes from out-of-state donors connected to the health-care industry, which isn’t surprising given Curd’s standing as a surgeon and connections outside South Dakota. “But it’s primarily South Dakotans,” Shields said.

It’s also a sign that Curd is serious about this run. And so are his supporters.

By Kevin Woster

Pat Robertson says Haiti brought this on itself.

I’m not exactly sure how. It has something to do with kicking out the French and making a pact with the devil.

Huh?

Yeah, me, too. But this isn’t the first time I’ve been puzzled by something Pat Robertson said.

President Obama took a different approach, one reflecting both compassion and an essential truth:

“But for the grace of God, there we go,” the president said in announcing the details of America’s response to the devastation in Haiti.

Obama has asked former presidents Bush (W) and Clinton to act as special envoys from the U.S. on this disaster.

They’ll do us proud as we take a role that the United States has willingly embraced over the years, in leading relief efforts for other nations in need.

Meanwhile, Mount Blogmore mourns from afar the thousands of lives lost and sends its heartfelt sympathy, support and prayers to the survivors.