What The (Bleep) Just Happened?

What the (bleep) just happened? That's the question most Americans have been asking since the Fall of 2008. And it's the question I ask---and answer---in my raucous, high-octane, and hilarious new book.

This book will make you think and laugh, and it will have you on your feet. It will be published on June 19th, but you can pre-order your copy today! Please click on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, or Indiebound, or get it on your Kindle, Nook, or iPad.

Burdens, Cliffs, & No Way To Run A Superpower

All of the attention is on Speaker of the House John Boehner after he called a vote last night on "Plan B" without actually having the votes to pass it. Plan B would have raised taxes on those making over $1 million but would not have been accompanied by serious spending cuts and/or entitlement reform. It was a massive tax hike on job creators that did nothing to address the REAL problem: grotesque overspending. No wonder it bit the dust.

But the burden on the fiscal cliff NEVER should have been on Boehner---or the House Republicans for that matter. The GOP House passed a bill extending all of the tax rates and was sent over to the Senate, where Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid promptly sat on it. He sits on it still. So the GOP has taken action and already passed a bill. The Democrat Senate refuses to take it up. And the Democrat president insists on higher taxes for the top earners while refusing to compromise on real spending cuts and/or entitlement reform.

The burden ALWAYS should have been on Obama and Reid to propose a real deal. Since they control the White House and the Senate, the burden always should have been on the Democrats. Instead, they have repeatedly lied about being interested in deficit reduction while moving relentlessly toward ever-greater wealth redistribution. And while dodging any real responsibility for their refusal to deal in good faith or reality thanks to a corrupt media that protects them every day.

So while Boehner has played his hand very, very badly, the President and Harry Reid are literally getting away with bloody murder as they push us----deliberately---off the cliff.

Remember: Obama WANTS to go over the cliff. He WANTS everybody's tax rates to go up, because he knows that if taxes go up solely on the top 1 or 2%, it will fund the government for about 11 days. (And as I said, forget about deficit reduction. Higher taxes have NOTHING to do with cutting the deficit.) Obama knows that he's got to get to where the REAL money is: the MIDDLE CLASS. He needs their tax rates to go up to get the real money he needs to feed his ever-growing ravenous beast of government.

Plus, he wants the defense sequester to go through (another $500 billion in cuts to defense, which, as his own Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, has said would destroy our ability to defend ourselves and our interests). Remember that the ONLY thing Obama is willing to cut is our national defense.

So: Boehner is inept, but when your main negotiating partner wants to go over the cliff, you're going over the cliff. And since the Republicans are going to get blamed no matter what, they'd might as well stand for their principles.

Regardless of what happens, all of this last-minute drama carried out by our so-called leaders is shameful. This is no way to run a superpower.

It IS, however, the way to become a FORMER superpower.

Stop The Boehner Tax Hike

Today the House of Representatives will vote on a major tax hike supported by Speaker John Boehner (D-Ohio). It includes tax increases without serious accompanying spending cuts or entitlement reform. It is an epic disaster.

Please visit RedState.com's Action Center to do what you can to STOP this NOW: http://www.redstate.com/2012/12/20/urgent-last-few-hours-to-stop-the-boehner-tax-hike/

Your voice matters. Let your member of Congress hear you on this. All hands on deck.

Checkers on a Chessboard

Every time I look, Speaker of the House John Boehner (D-Ohio) is caving on some core Republican principle. Higher taxes? Sure! Raise the debt ceiling? No problem! Weak promises of slowing the rate of spending rather than actual spending cuts? You bet! No meaningful entitlement reform? No worries!

Boehner might as well go ahead and make it official: become a Democrat and head to their holiday parties. Under Boehner, the GOP stands for little to nothing and is showing that there is little to nothing for which they are willing to fight. No wonder Obama and the Democrats are eating their lunch.

Boehner keeps coming at Obama, hat in hand, with ever-greater concessions, and each and every time, Obama blows him off. Obama has been doing this for four years (I detail every previous episode on "What The (Bleep) Just Happened?"), so this should come as no surprise. Obama is a pure, unapologetic leftist bent on radical wealth redistribution in order to "fundamentally transform" the nation. This requires no negotiation on his part. Hence, the no negotiation on his part.

Obama is playing chess. Boehner is playing checkers---on Obama's chessboard. He's getting his clock cleaned, and he either doesn't know it, or he knows it and doesn't care. Either way, we're screwed.

Sometimes Evil Is Just Evil

Since the unimaginable occurred in Newtown, Connecticut last Friday, in which 20 beautiful, angelic children and 6 heroic adults were gunned down in cold blood by a mass murderer, everyone has struggled to make sense of the incomprehensible.

Many on the Left are blaming the weapons, moving speedily to try to impose ever-more gun control. Some on the Right are pointing to the breakdown of the family, the removal of God from schools, the broader secularization of society, and the glorification of violence in the culture. Others are mentioning autism and mental illness and social isolation.

All may have a point. Or none may.

When something this horrific happens, we tend to try to find a bigger, more encompassing reason for it. We do this so we can try to "fix" it so it doesn't---can't---happen again. This is the human mind's tendency to try to exert control over human behavior, which sometimes (often?) cannot be controlled, by legislation or anything else.

More often than not, the answer is not found in some big, sprawling explanation about society or the culture but in the most simple and obvious one: evil.

That's a tough reality to swallow, because evil cannot be legislated out of existence or controlled in any other way. It's out of our control---happening on a level above our mere human one---which makes it terrifying and something we therefore do everything we can to avoid.

Sometimes, evil is just evil. And sometimes, it makes itself known in the most unthinkable ways, leaving most of us feeling helpless---except for two things. Humanity and prayer. And so, we grieve the loss of those babies, who saw evil face-to-face far too soon, we comfort their families, we pray for those brave adults who tried to confront and stop that evil, and we pray for the families of all of the victims.

"If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31)