South Dakota District 33 State Senator Elizabeth Kraus has written an op/ed piece published in the Rapid City Journal today. It deals with the lawsuit Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, has filed against South Dakota’s informed consent law passed by a large majority in the legislature a few months ago.

The vitriolic response to Tea Party calls for financial responsibility reveals how warped politics has become in our nation’s capital, a place where compromise is king and special interests drive the agenda. If you stand on principle and actually live by your campaign promises, you are deemed a “radical.” If you walk the talk, you are viewed as a two headed monster.

We need a leader prepared to tell the American people what they don’t want to hear. We need a leader obsessed with truth, not focus groups. A clever candidate, like Romney, may exploit current dissatisfaction and get nominated, and maybe elected, by smooth talking and avoiding hard truths. But then we’ll have a leader who won’t lead and where will we be?

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit is the latest court to strike down the unconstitutional ObamaCare scheme as, well, unconstitutional. They ruled that the mandate forcing Americans to buy a product they may not want or need violates the U.S. Constitution, upholding a fundamental level of freedom Americans once took for granted. Unlike a previous district court ruling, however, they did not rule that the unconstitutionality of the mandate invalidated the entire law.

On Monday Michigan threw 30,000 college students off of its food stamps program in an effort to combat the rampant abuse of the system. College students were using their government funded debit cards to buy not just milk and cheese, but beer and cigarettes, hardly the “necessities” the program was established to provide. One student on his blog Viceland commented about how he never realized he could qualify for food stamps until he witnessed his friend buy beer and a bag of chewing tobacco with his food stamps card, prompting him (and presumably other students) to do the same.

Another one for the “Well Said” file. This time from the late-night Fox News talk show host Greg Gutfeld. President Obama’s expressions of frustration with the economy: “That’s like a mugger saying ‘Sorry for your loss.’”

The latest GOP presidential debate was held tonight at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. GOP candidates participating were Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rep. Ron Paul, Mitt “RomneyCare” Romney, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman, and Newt Gingrich. Candidates were asked questions on numerous topics including the economy, job creation, illegal immigration, taxes, and the recent “debt deal.” Here are some highlights of those questions and the answers.

How damning, how indicting, how accurate, how comprehensive, how insightful, how right-on can one 90 second clip be? Watch.

In their desperation to keep pets, illegal aliens and dead folks voting, the Left conjures up silly claims that having to prove you are who you say you are will somehow rob certain people of their right to vote. Who among us doesn’t have–or should have–a drivers license or other form of identification to drive, take a flight, open a bank account or any number of things requiring positive identification…except voting? Who would have the wrongheaded audacity to claim voter identification is akin to Jim Crow Laws…except people primarily found in the political party that came up with Jim Crow Laws in the first place?

Max Hastings at the British Daily Mail has had the courage to describe the rioters who have been burning the UK for the past several days. They are “a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters” spawned by “years of liberal dogma.” Seldom do we see such recognition of cause and effect in the media.

When evil has been spreading across the land for years, and lately has shown the full venom of its poisonous fangs, it sure is refreshing to see the good guys win. I’m talking about Wisconsin, where Governor Scott Walker and the Republican legislature have been busy this year rolling back the rape and pillage of the Wisconsin taxpayer by union socialists. Though outspent 2-1, Republicans survived a recall election launched by the Left, and retain control of the WI legislature.

Why is it that the President Obama and Secretary Sebelius want women to have free access to abortion and cancer-causing birth control to fight the “disease” of pregnancy, yet medication that literally keeps my 2 1/2 year old son Gunner, who has cystic fibrosis, from dying costs my husband and I hundreds every month? Why is it that the Left in America has virtually everything turned upside down and backwards in their minds?

Obama: The Food Stamp President. Bringing socialism to the people as only a top-notch Marxist can. You never knew electronic wealth transfers could be so good, did you? If you’re still working, stop what you’re doing and get your card today!

Bill Whittle’s latest Afterburner examines the state of poverty in America. We always, ceacelessly hear whining from the class-envy-breeding socialists in America that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Is that really true? The rich are definitely getting richer, but the evidence shows the poor are becoming far better off than ever before, especially here in America. And what affect do our life choices have on our material wealth?

America has been blessed by God to become one of the greatest nations, if not the greatest nation, in the history of the world, and our capitalist system has been a wonderful boon to our trip to the top. Over the years, as happens to all systems of mankind in this fallen world, corruption has corroded our foundation, and we have turned our backs on God, Who blessed us with prosperity for so long. Today, we are paying the price for turning our backs on Him. But more socialism is not the answer, but more of the poison already ailing us.

Like many other unsuspecting souls, Mary G. Sykes has found herself under the control of a system she didn’t sign up for and hadn’t supposed would be getting involved in her life and affairs. Instead, her wants have been deemed irrelevant and thus ignored by a system that was meant to protect — not imprison, strip away the rights and drain the assets of the vulnerable among us.

In the age of Christendom, the church occupied a central and influential place in society and the Western world considered itself both formally and officially Christian. So when we speak of post-Christendom, we are making the point that the church no longer occupies this central place of social and cultural hegemony and Western civilization no longer considers itself to be formally or officially Christian. This represents a monumental shift in the cultural context into which the Western, and specifically American, church is now attempting to carry out its mission.

From our good friends at The People’s Cube. Reprinted by permission.

Moody’s and S&P told us they would downgrade America’s AAA credit rating if our government didn’t come up with a credible plan to cut at least $4 trillion. Our leaders didn’t believe them, but they’ve done it anyway. Now how does that affect you as the average American? The Cato Institute has put together a short video which shows you.

Mary Katherine Ham on how to save money, Washington D.C. style HT: Hot Air

South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard offers some suggestions to the federal government for dealing with their debt mess. One is to stop increasing the federal debt. Another is the power of a line-item veto. The federal government should also prohibit bills that deal with multiple subjects; non-related appropriations are often tacked onto bills and carry with them increases in spending.

The only party in Washington that rejected the insufficient debt deal that paved the way for AA was the tea party. At the end of the day, they were the only ones who were insisting on a solution instead of a deal to our creditworthiness crisis. They were the only ones who demanded the budget be balanced. They were the only ones who pointed to the S&P warning and advised policymakers to exceed the $4 trillion minimum threshold for savings. The tea party was right. Everyone else just has egg all over their faces.

This weekend, David Beers, global head of sovereign and international public finance ratings at S&P. This article really cuts through all the bluster from the Left on the first-ever downgrade of the U.S. credit rating when he said, “The key thing is, yes, entitlement reform is important because entitlements are the biggest component of spending, and the part of spending where the cost pressures are greatest.” We can’t keep increasing $14 trillion in debt and spending $1.6 trillion more than we have each year on an unsustainable entitlement system that isn’t even authorized by the U.S. Constitution.

Asian stocks nose-dived Monday on news of the first-ever downgrade of the US credit rating. We were warned well ahead of time that the American government needed to cut at least $4 trillion to avoid a downgrade, but intransigent liberals refused to cut our $14 trillion debt, our $1.6 trillion annual deficit, or remove one precious brick from their glorious welfare state.

We as citizens who love our country must to break the logjam caused by an imperial presidency, an abdicating legislature, an activist court, a suffocating bureaucracy, and the strangulation of regulation. It’s time to actively work for America’s acceptance of a different way. Something radical, something that almost strains the bounds of the imagination, something that would immediately unleash the bent-up energy of a free people: a return to constitutionally limited government!