Rising star Joni Ernst (R-IA) delivers State of the Union response

The first woman elected to Congress from Iowa, and the first female combat veteran in Congress, rising star U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) delivered the Republican response to the State of the Union address.

Watch Senator Ernst's SOTU response speech:

www.gop.gov/SOTU

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, all!!

My Thanksgiving post here, from last year.
[Especially see the 'message' part, at the bottom.]


Best wishes to you and yours, for a happy and blessed Thanksgiving!!

CRNC Biennial Convention 2011 (The Midwest is the best!)

#CRNCDC

Things have been moving quite fast here, so (like for prior events), I'm setting up a Twitter-feed. This one has some of our Midwest Caucus CRs, who are live-Tweeting. The entry below is the general Tweet stream, for this 2011 Biennial Convention.

The Midwest is the best!!





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CRNC Biennial Convention 2011

#CRNCDC

See entry above... That one has the explanation, & live-coverage, from our CRNC Midwest Caucus!

This however, is the general Twitter stream, for live coverage of the 2011 Biennial Convention of the College Republican National Committee (CRNC).

A sustainable economic plan

While driving home from Washington D.C. yesterday, I had the opportunity to listen to lots of talk radio and got some wonderful ideas for some blog posts.  I'll share more about my trip at another time, but one thing I find it important to write about is the looming default of American credit and talks to corral our spending.

Mark Levin outlined, on my drive home, an important message to Republicans in the deal-making process.  While Republicans are attempting to make strides to ensure a brighter American future in negotiations with the President, Levin offers this:

"We all know where the country is headed, we all know what the problem is.  We all know that the Tea Party movement is not only right, but it's the only thing saving this nation.  So the paradox is, that it's treated as some small, insignificant force, when in fact they are urging the only way out.  Another paradox; in order to change Washington, George [Will], you gotta change Washington.  Right?  And so what the Tea Party movement is trying to do, what the Reagan Revolution is trying to do and what the conservatives in the conservative movement have been hoping and trying to do is to reverse course. You can't reverse course without reversing course.  You can't slash spending without slashing spending.  In other words, talk is cheap and now it's time to act."

The American people should not be satisfied with a clandestine deal involving a minimal reduction in spending in exchange for an expansion in our already-crippling debt.  We need a balanced budget, lower taxes, and a stable economy.   We the people are engaged with the political process and will not settle for the selling of our future and a mortgage of our children's future.  We want the Republican party to be the people's advocate in Washington, D.C., and we sent that message loud and clear in November of 2010 and we will do so again in November of 2012.  But if those for fiscal responsibility haven't found an advocate in D.C. by this upcoming election cycle, we'll send in a new round of even-more-conservative men and women to Capitol Hill.

Obama, who was a Constitutional Law professor at the University of Chicago, has said he will veto the Tea Party-backed plan and balanced budget amendment.  For those that aren't familiar with the process, a Constitutional amendment must pass both the House and the Senate by a 2/3 majority and would then need to be ratified by 3/4 of the states.  Missing from this process, as a Constitutional Law professor should probably be able to see, is the Office of the President.  Even more embarrassing is the fact that there is even a Con Law case that re-states the President's absence from the process, Hollingsworth v. Virginia.

A balanced budget amendment is not out of reach.   49 states, Vermont being the lone hold-out, have a balanced budget policy, and as recently as March of 1995, an amendment to balance the budget passed the House and was just one vote short of passing the Senate.   Now is the time for the citizens that believe in saving the economy to contact Congress and urge them to save America's future with this sustainable economic plan.

RightOnline 2011: A Kansas Perspective (#RO11, #TheUndefeated)

I was fortunate enough to be among the almost two thousand attendees at this year's RightOnline Conference in Minneapolis, MN. It was a very productive weekend, filled with networking and putting faces with Twitter handles. I came away with a greater appreciation of our power as bloggers and social media users and am excited to continue our fight for conservative values.

Below, I've excerpted a few RightOnline 2011 posts, all of which originally appeared on my blog at http://calebhays.com.

"RightOnline is a conference dedicated to teaching conservative activists on how to use online technologies and how to purpose them to help move America forward. Of course, for people like me, Melissa Ward, Jayvie Canomo, Tabitha Hale, and Teresa Oelke, it’s a great place to meet the people with work with everyday on Twitter and other online avenues.


"In fact, I met Nansen Malin, a true #tcot Twitter superstar, in her Twitter breakout session. I kind of… hijacked the session, too. Oops… This tweet sent Nansen an @ reply and displayed on the giant screen in the front of the same room this happened in… The crowd started chuckling, and then I had to ‘fess up!"
-from RightOnline 2011 Opening Breakout Sessions (#RO11)

"Members of the NetRoots Nation Conference tried to crash RightOnline 2011. Hotel and AFP security had to push them back." [photos]
-from RightOnline 2011: NetRoots Comes to Visit (#RO11)

"Friday night at AFP Foundation’s RightOnline Conference, we were fortunate enough to be some of the first in the nation to screen the almost final version of 'The Undefeated: The Sarah Palin Documentary.'

"Over the next two hours and fifteen minutes or so, the six hundred or so in the room at RightOnline got a glimpse into Palin’s life through the eyes of some of her most trusted advisors. It wasn’t a film that maliciously dug into her life; it just showed us the world from the point of view of those who knew her before she was thrust onto the national stage, and this perspective really helped explain her recent actions. Moreover, it reintroduced the room of conservative activists to the Palin we once knew and strongly admired and showed us once again why we felt she was a true leader."


-from RightOnline 2011: Screening “The Undefeated” (#RO11 #TheUndefeated)

"Our favorite liberal online rag Huffington Post decided to carry one of my tweets (and one of fellow Kansan Beka Romm’s, too) as part of the back story for one of the weekend articles covering U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)."
-from RightOnline 2011: My Cameo in “Huffington Post” (#RO11)

For my RightOnline 2011 Wrap-up post, which includes photo highlights of the conference, please visit this link.

Click here to view all of my coverage of RightOnline 2011.

Right Online 2011

[Note: I don't know if the Widget isn't loading, or if it's just slow, on my end. In case it isn't, just follow the link:
http://twitter.com/AakashRaut/lists/midwest-crnc-rightonline Thanks!]





I've had quite the experience (!!) at RightOnline - or more-specifically, on my way to it, etc...

I'm trying to rush off right now, to one of the breakout-sessions, but didn't want any more time to pass, before loading one of those [quickly-put-together] Twitter-stream, of our CRNC-Midwest Caucus members, who are here!

[There's unfortunately no time to post actual blog entries right now, while partaking in all the other good stuff!]

And, I apologize for those here, who I've left out. I'm behind today (as well as yesterday!!), not to mention, severely under-caffeinated.

Minnesota College Republicans on Governor Mark Dayton (D-MN) & the Budget Bill

The Minnesota College Republican Federation (MNCR) recently unveiled a new website... During this past week's [HIGHLY-contentious!] Minnesota legislative session, the MNCRs posted a good analysis, at their blog.

From May 23, 2011, @MNCRs blog...

Minnesota Budget Bill:
Dayton Should Learn from Pawlenty’s Policies
The budget battle continues in St. Paul as the deadline approaches. As our Republican representatives stand strong against job killing taxes, the Democrats persist that taxes are the only way to balance the budget.

This battle seems fairly familiar. Last year, the Democrats in the Minnesota Legislature insisted on hurting businesses across Minnesota with costly tax increases while Governor Tim Pawlenty said no. Governor Dayton would do well to take a page from Pawlenty’s economic playbook...

====> Check it out, at the MNCR blog...