Why is the mainstream media ignoring Rick Crawford?

Arkansans joined the nationwide protest movement last year as conservative voters found their collective voice and stood against the Obamanation of our country. From Tea Parties to Health Care Town Halls, these voters calls for responsibility and accountability from their elected officials went largely unheeded. But several candidates for office were paying attention, even when our Representatives and Senators weren’t.

Rick Crawford, GOP candidate for Arkansas’ 1st Congressional district seat in the US House of Representatives was one of these. He’s well known and recognized by 1st district voters who are actively involved in their local Republican Committees or Tea Parties. He’s been working to spread his message since last spring, not only at protests, but local festivals and events across the 1st District.

Crawford appears to have a real shot at becoming the first Republican to represent the 1st Congressional District since 1875. And his campaign is gaining momentum.

But if you were counting on the mainstream media to inform you of Rick’s candidacy, you may not yet know he exists. That’s because television stations and newspapers, statewide and local to the 1st District, have largely ignored his campaign.

Traditional news sources across the state have failed to cover several major developments in what could be an historic campaign. In the past month, Crawford has received three major endorsements from influential Republicans in the state. Mike Huckabee, Ed Bethune, and Asa Hutchinson have thrown their support to this Jonesboro veteran with strong ties to the 1st District’s large agricultural community.

Even the television station from his hometown of Jonesboro doesn’t seem to think his candidacy deserves more than a casual mention every once in a while. Searching their site you’ll see one article devoted to Rick–the August 27, 2009 article on his official announcement that he was entering the race. Those search results do include two articles covering Rep. Marion Berry’s (D) announcement that he won’t seek reelection and Crawford is mentioned almost as an aside in these.

Search results of the archives of the Jonesboro Sun reveal a similar dearth of articles on Crawford’s campaign. The obligatory August announcement that he’s running, then a couple of mentions in articles about Berry. The Sun did mention Crawford in a late January article titled “1st District Race Far from Settled” in late January, but only toward the end and after a long list of potential Democrat contenders.

Arkansas’ statewide newspaper, The Arkansas Democrat Gazette, also mentions Crawford in several Berry articles, but nothing devoted entirely to Rick’s campaign. But the Democrat Gazette did consider it newsworthy that Princella Smith, a potential GOP challenger to Crawford, is thinking about throwing her hat in the ring following Berry’s announcement that he won’t run again.

Of the four major television stations in Little Rock, only KTHV 11 has an article on their website about Crawford. That’s an AP article from May of last year announcing Rick’s intent to challenge Berry.

Last May, on the influential conservative blog Redstate.com, Moe Lane speculated “We will no doubt see more [Crawford] campaign-related items as time goes on.” But we haven’t…at least not from traditional media sources.

Luckily, Crawford embraced new media and social networking sites early on. His Facebook page sports over 1300 fans now and almost 800 follow him on Twitter. Many of these supporters depend on the blog posts on his website to keep them informed since the mainstream media refuses to.

Several Facebook fans recently wondered about the lack of coverage by the mainstream media and one even speculated the media’s liberal bias is to blame.

Shelley asked, “Why is it that we aren’t seeing any articles on you in the papers? I keep waiting to see you mentioned and they talk about all the other candidates and you are never mentioned!” Grace responded, “I agree, I never see anything about you in the papers. What is up with that?” And Kelly replied, “I think the main reason that the papers around here are not picking up Rick is because they are controlled by a liberal bias. They are afraid to give Rick the time of day because he is the most creditable [sic] threat to eliminate Nancy Pelosi’s liberal agenda in Washington…”

Whatever the reason, it’s pretty obvious the mainstream media has chosen to ignore Rick Crawford.

But you can spread the word about his campaign by becoming a fan of his Facebook page, following him on Twitter, and passing along his updates to your 1st District friends and families.

Sweet Tea for Convention Attendees

by Jillian Bandes at Townhall.com

If you read any of the extensive coverage of the Tea Party Convention going on this weekend in Nashville, TN, be prepared for dramatic stories of rampant grassroots infighting, questionable convention finances, and radical convention-goers flocking after polarizing demagogues.

The real story? Much different.

Attendees are wildly enthusiastic, not just about speakers, but about ideas. Those ideas are focused almost exclusively on basic conservative principles like limited government and fiscal responsibility (not the Obama birther conspiracy). And attendees are barely aware of the criticism that has been launched at the Tea Party Convention by mainstream media outlets.

“It’s a good idea,” said one attendee, pithily, when asked why he drove in from Ohio to participate.

Attendees are mainly being informed about the manufactured scandals through convention speakers, who have taken every opportunity to punch back — like Mark Skoda, head of the Memphis tea party group.

“We’ve come so far in the world of socialist values that we’re now criticizing a for-profit event,” he said, during a morning briefing on Friday. “We’ve put six hundred thousand of our dollars into the Gaylord Hotel (where the event is being hosted). We didn’t ask for a tax benefit, a subsidy, or a stimulus.”

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Race to Raise the Debt Ceiling

President Obama continues to SAY he will demand deficit neutral legislation from Congress. He continues to PREACH a message of fiscal responsibility. BHO continues to BLAME the Bush administration for every bad piece of economic news released in the wake of Democrats’ unprecedented socialization of the American economy in 2009.

For the first six months of his term, Obama got almost 100% of everything he demanded of his Democrat dominated Congress.

• He demanded his $787 billion “porkulus” bill be passed to avoid 10% unemployment and the loss of millions more jobs.
  • It passed along party lines and now we have 10% unemployment and millions more lost jobs.
• He demanded his record budget be passed.
  • Democrats voted for it, Republicans against, and we now have record deficits.
• He seized control of General Motors and Chrysler claiming it was necessary to make them profitable again.
  • Now the US government and the UAW own the two behemoths. They both remain unprofitable, but their American competitor that DID NOT take a government bailout posted a profit last year.
• He demanded TARP be expanded so banks would lend money to get the economy moving again.
  • Democrats agreed, the banks got our money, and the credit markets largely remain frozen.
• He demanded new legislation to stem the flow of home foreclosures.
  • Democrats obliged and now we continue to see record numbers of people losing their homes.

Though President Barack Hussein Obama continues to blame former President George Bush for all the evils in the world, the current President’s solutions have been implemented and solved absolutely nothing!

Now, Democrats in the US Senate have voted to increase the federal debt ceiling by $1.9 trillion to $14.3 trillion from the current $12.4 trillion. The US House will soon vote to do likewise. And today we have yet another reminder of the utter failure of Obama’s economic policies.

According to the US Treasury Department, the federal debt will reach the current debt ceiling of $12.3 trillion by month’s end! No wonder Obama’s in a hurry to raise the limit.

If Congress refuses to allow the President to borrow more, BHO will run out of OUR money to spend! He’ll no longer be able to mortgage our children’s future to buy a few votes. He’ll no longer be able to fund his goon squads at ACORN, SEIU, and the New Black Panther Party! He might even have to slow down his jet setting around in Air Force 1 if the US line of credit becomes maxed out.

Write, call, and email your US Representatives and demand they NOT increase the debt limit. If the President won’t voluntarily cut spending, if he’s going to keep saying one thing and doing another, let’s cut up his credit card and send him the message that it’s time he learn to get by the way ordinary Americans do when times are tough.

We’ve been tightening our belts! It’s time Uncle Sam pulled his a couple of notches tighter.

Inside Obama’s Budget

Okay, tell those who believe BHO’s BS, take a look at the projected individual vs corporate income tax receipts for budget years 2011-2020 on page 12 of Obama’s proposed budget.

Budget Year	Individual Income Tax Receipts (Billions)	Corporate Income Tax Receipts (Billions)
2011	1,121	297
2012	1,289	356
2013	1,386	371
2014	1,470	408
2015	1,542	366
2016	1,604	388
2017	1,659	388
2018	1,709	384
2019	1,753	383
2020	1,791	385

That’s a 60% increase in annual individual tax receipts over the next 10 years, vs. a 30% increase in corporate tax receipts over the same period.

It sounds like Obama either intends to dramatically boost individual income tax rates over the 10 year period, or doesn’t expect corporations to fare very well in the coming decade.

If we are forced to endure the President’s policies, both may well prove to be true.

Why would Reuters pull this story?

Backdoor Taxes to Hit Middle Class

Earlier today, Reuters ran a story with the preceding headline. Then, suddenly, it was gone.

Poof!

Imagine that. A story that confirms yet another broken promise by President Barack Hussein Obama removed from public view.

Is this censorship? Did the propaganda ministry in the White House black list the story? No explanation from the news agency certainly leads the mind to wonder.

Fortunately, the folks at ShowbizGossips posted the story before the censors decided bad press for Obama isn’t allowed. We’ll repost it here in case they feel the Propaganda Ministry pinch too. Here’s the post Reuters (and the Obama administration?) didn’t want you to see!

The Obama administration’s plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families. In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year — effectively a tax hike by stealth. While the administration is focusing its proposal on eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn $250,000 a year or more, middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases. The targeted tax provisions were enacted under the Bush administration’s Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Among other things, the law lowered individual tax rates, slashed taxes on capital gains and dividends, and steadily scaled back the estate tax to zero in 2010. If the provisions are allowed to expire on December 31, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. But lower-income families will pay more as well: the 25 percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent; the 28 percent bracket will increase to 31 percent; and the 33 percent bracket will increase to 36 percent. The special 10 percent bracket is eliminated. Investors will pay more on their earnings next year as well, with the tax on dividends jumping to 39.6 percent from 15 percent and the capital-gains tax increasing to 20 percent from 15 percent. The estate tax is eliminated this year, but it will return in 2011 — though there has been talk about reinstating the death tax sooner. Millions of middle-class households already may be facing higher taxes in 2010 because Congress has failed to extend tax breaks that expired on January 1, most notably a “patch” that limited the impact of the alternative minimum tax. The AMT, initially designed to prevent the very rich from avoiding income taxes, was never indexed for inflation. Now the tax is affecting millions of middle-income households, but lawmakers have been reluctant to repeal it because it has become a key source of revenue. Without annual legislation to renew the patch this year, the AMT could affect an estimated 25 million taxpayers with incomes as low as $33,750 (or $45,000 for joint filers). Even if the patch is extended to last year’s levels,the tax will hit American families that can hardly be considered wealthy — the AMT exemption for 2009 was $46,700 for singles and $70,950 for married couples filing jointly. Middle-class families also will find fewer tax breaks available to them in 2010 if other popular tax provisions are allowed to expire. Among them: Taxpayers who itemize will lose the option to deduct state sales-tax payments instead of state and local income taxes; The $250 teacher tax credit for classroom supplies; The tax deduction for up to $4,000 of college tuition and expenses; Individuals who don’t itemize will no longer be able to increase their standard deduction by up to $1,000 for property taxes paid; The first $2,400 of unemployment benefits are taxable, in 2009 that amount was tax-free

Suddenly, Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) remembers her constituents

For the past year, Senator Lincoln has sucked up to President Obama and Harry Reid, voting for Obama’s $787 trillion “Porkulus” bill, his budget that set a record $1.4 trillion deficit (TRIPLING THE OLD RECORD!), and casting several yea votes in the dead of night and even on Christmas Eve to help the Senate pass Harry Reid’s version of Obamacare. Lincoln’s Arkansas constituents wanted none of these, and let the Senator know it.

She ignored them. Lincoln even went so far as to not answer phones on days when important votes were taking place. It took intense negative pressure for the Senator to agree to meet with constituents during the Senate’s August recess last year, and then she made every effort to meet with the few handpicked supporters of the health care legislation and leave out any who opposed her desire for the government run health care system.

By November, she had chosen to stand on the fence for a while to appear deliberative and responsive to the chorus of criticism being leveled from every corner of Arkansas. In the end, she proved that she had always had her mind made up to vote with Obama and Reid. In the face of uncountable calls, emails, and faxes from constituents demanding she vote against Reid’s version of Obamacare, Lincoln cast her vote with the tyrannical Democrats running the White House and Capitol instead of voting for those she supposedly represents.

Now that it’s an election year, she suddenly remembers that she represents folks back home, especially Arkansas’ farmers. Here’s the text of her latest mass email to constituents:

Earlier today, President Obama released his budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2011. As Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, I am opposed to cuts to programs important to agriculture and rural communities. Throughout my Senate career, I have been a strong, independent voice for Arkansas’s agricultural producers. Now, as Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee, I am standing up for farmers and ranchers and all of rural America once again by opposing cuts that will harm the hard-working men and women who are the backbone of our rural economy. Put simply, the President’s proposal picks winners and losers. By targeting policies that rural America relies upon, this proposal places a disproportionate burden on the backs of farmers and rural communities. While I too believe we must reduce the federal deficit, we must all share in this responsibility. In 2008, I worked hard to pass a five-year farm bill that was fiscally responsible. This bill contained over $4 billion worth of cuts to farm programs, was completely paid for and did not contribute to the deficit. The Farm Bill is a contract with our farmers that they depend on to make business decisions. Changing the rules in the middle of the game would be detrimental to their operations and would cost us even more jobs in rural America. I thank the President for his recommendations, but Congress writes the budget. I intend to support measures to reduce the deficit but fight many of the President’s proposed cuts that will harm farmers, ranchers and rural communities.

What Lincoln means is now that it’s an election year, I have to stand up for my constituents or I’m guaranteed to lose the election. She’s banking on the long-standing assumption of DC politicians that constituents have short memories. The Senator believes her constituents won’t remember her giving them the finger throughout 2009, if she strokes them behind the ears for the next 9 months.

She’s right the President’s budget picks winners and losers. Just like the “Porkulus” bill, his takeovers of private industry, and his last year’s budget that Lincoln voted for. Now that it’s an election year she can’t bring herself to support his obvious bias that benefits blue states and punishes red states.

Only because it’s an election year!

Don’t be fooled Arkansas. Senator Lincoln will try to appear to address your concerns from now until November. If she’s re-elected, she’ll be right back in the laps of Obama and Reid.

Our Children are Going to Pay

by Curtis Coleman, Arkansas GOP candidate for US Senate

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) voted to borrow another $1.9 TRILLION this past week…and our children are going to pay. What kind of immorality is this that we are recklessly throwing away our children’s future? What happened to us that we care more about our comfort than their freedom?

Of course, Sen. Lincoln had little choice since she and her cohorts in Congress have been consistently spending more than is coming in. It’s called deficit spending. If it continues, it inevitably leads to bankruptcy. Which is where the U.S. is headed on a high-speed train.

There is a very important distinction between a deficit and the debt. Deficit spending means we’re spending more than we’re taking in. Debt is what results from deficit spending. The deficit is how much we are borrowing. The debt is how much we have already borrowed from lenders like China.

So, as a country we have already borrowed $12,400,000,000,000 to finance our deficit spending. That’s our debt. President Obama is now asking us to spend $1,700,000,000,000 more in 2010 than the federal government’s projected income. That amount will be our deficit this year. The result? We’ll have a new total debt of $14,100,000,000,000 at the end of year. Let me bring this closer to home. This debt is not the money somebody else owes. This is the money you owe. The only money the government has is your money.

Your portion is $45,000. Pay up, please! Don’t have it? Well, then we’ll have to borrow it from somebody (probably the Chinese if they’ll still lend it to us). So our children will have to pay it back – plus interest.

Is this really okay with you?

The POLR (Pelosi/Obama/Lincoln/Reid) Administration is now talking about reducing the deficit starting next year. (That’s kind of like me starting a diet- tomorrow.) All that means is that we’ll slow how fast we’re still borrowing money! We must stop deficit spending, but we must also attack the debt. Our country’s debt is a clear and present danger, an urgent matter of national security, and it must be attacked as our worst enemy.

What is the solution?

Well, let’s start with the profoundly obvious: Spend less than we have. When our outgo exceeds our income, our overhead will be our downfall. So, we can either increase our income or decrease our outgo. Or do both!

First, how do we increase our income? The liberals believe we do that by increasing taxes. That approach seems to make sense – but it doesn’t. Our economic history has consistently shown that when we increase taxes, we suppress growth in our economy and discourage initiative and achievement in our people. The government ends up taking a bigger piece of a shrinking pie. This process is a death spiral – and one the U.S. is on today.

What we must do is allow U.S. businesses and individuals to generate more income by (1) reducing taxes and (2) getting a stifling, smothering, anti-business bureaucracy out of our faces, out of our offices, and out of our pocketbooks. Our economic history has consistently shown that reducing taxes creates economic growth. The result is government can take a smaller piece of a much bigger pie and still increase its income. When Americans discover that they get to keep more of the income they generate, they’ll generate a lot more income – and the pie gets even bigger! But government’s intrusion into every aspect of our economy creates huge inefficiencies as businesses and individuals must deal with the demands placed upon them.

Increasing income is only ½ of the solution. We must also decrease our outgo. How do we do that?

The cost of government has gotten too big because the size of government has gotten too big. We reduce the cost of government by reducing the size of government. Easier said than done? You bet!

So where do we start? Well, you can poke the federal government just about anywhere and hit fat, so our choices are almost endless. Let’s start with eliminating some of these bloated, competitive, and duplicative bureaucracies. (I’ve been in the food safety business for the last decade. I’ve been told that there are as many as 17 different federal agencies that regulate food safety. That over-regulation could explain why we don’t have safer food – and a budget deficit!)

We must rein in some terribly out-of-bounds if not out-of-control federal agencies such as the EPA, which has become something like a 21st century American Gestapo. It recently told Congress that it will do by regulation what Congress refuses to do by legislation. When a federal agency blackmails Congress, it is time for that bureaucracy to have its wings clipped and its chain dramatically shortened.

But more fundamentally and much more importantly, we must make a multi-generational commitment to return and reshape the federal government to the original prescription of the Constitution.

The biggest challenge to reducing the size of the federal government is the inevitable battle over what we will be cut and what will be kept. Those decisions – though painful – are not as difficult as they are made to seem. We already have an adopted blueprint for the role of the federal government. It’s called the Constitution of the United States of America. It clearly defines what the federal government is supposed to do, and perhaps more importantly, what the federal government is not supposed to do.

We are far adrift from its prescription. If we’re going to survive this seemingly insoluble situation, we must make the commitment – an indisputable, multi-generational and solemn commitment – to reshape and restore the federal government according to the Constitution’s prescription.

This is the fundamental battle we must fight and win in Congress. We start now and we must not waver nor be deterred. We must put – not just politicians – but leaders in Congress; bulldogs instead of blue dogs; warriors who understand that nothing less than liberty and freedom for our children and their children are at stake.

If you agree that the battle to win the U.S. Senate seat in Arkansas will be nothing compared to the battle that must be fought after we win this seat, please stand with me by contributing your time and money. Please make the most generous contribution you possibly can today at www.CurtisColeman.com. This is the time to use every resource and leverage every relationship we have to carry this fight to Washington.

Thank you for standing with me in this fight for freedom!

Everybody knows the union bosses names…

…at the White House.

The folks at the National Right to Work have put together this video emphasizing the Obama White House’s unnaturally close relationship with big labor’s bosses. This is a clear violation of the President’s campaign promise to keep lobbyists out of positions of influence in his administration. Of course, he’s already broken that promise many times over.

Curtis Coleman: Money Bomb Today!

Earlier this month, we helped stop the Obama-Pelosi-Reid fast train to a government takeover of the US health care system. The battle that ground the Democrat engine to a halt took place in Massachusetts, but patriots from across America sacrificed their valuable time and hard-earned money to help make the victory possible. We can now expect more candidates to try to tap the cooperation and corroboration of Americans from coast-to-coast that helped MA Republican Scott Brown win the seat Democrats never thought they could lose.

Donate $10 for 10 Now

One of Brown’s most successful tactics came in the form of an online “Money Bomb” that raised over $1.3 million in just one day! Thousands of individuals donated as little as $5 to help Brown become the Senator-elect who will soon take the seat so long occupied by the iconic liberal Democrat Ted Kennedy. Now, Arkansas Republican candidate for US Senate Curtis Coleman hopes to boost his campaign coffers utilizing the Brown model.

Coleman is one of four GOP candidates Rasmussen shows leading Senator Blanche Lincoln in this year’s race to represent Arkansas in the US Senate. But the conservative business owner lags behind the GOP establishment favorite in raising campaign cash for the race, and has announced he will be holding his own “Money Bomb” tomorrow.

Calling his event “10 for ‘10“, Coleman has set a goal of 1,000 Facebook friends contributing $10 each to raise $10,000 on Saturday. His slogan, “Change America for $10“, implies that anyone (everyone?) in America can do a little to accomplish dramatic, real change for these United States.

Coleman was one of the first to commit to challenge the incumbent Lincoln, and he’s been working hard to establish an impressive grassroots network of supporters across the state. He’s been present at numerous Tea Party events across the state, working the crowd when he wasn’t addressing them. He’s used social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to a much greater extent than his competition. We’ve heard supporters state this extraordinary level of interaction during the campaign and his promise to continue to engage his constituents once elected are the reasons they’ve chosen to support Coleman.

Tomorrow we’ll find out just how effective his efforts have been. If his Money Bomb proves successful, Coleman’s grassroots efforts and extensive use of the internet and social networking may prove to be the tactic that turns the establishment GOP on its head. Members of the Republican hierarchy that call on Coleman and others to drop out and let their candidate run unopposed just might be silenced. And a real Republican primary, where the people of Arkansas choose their nominee, just might occur.

The Spender-in-Chief’s Fiscal Freeze Follies

by Michelle Malkin at Townhall.com

There are more loopholes in President Obama’s proposed “spending freeze” than in an Olympic volleyball net. Gargantuan government entitlements (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) are exempt. A half-trillion in unspent stimulus money is exempt. Foreign aid is exempt. The Democrats’ proposed $154 billion jobs bill (Stimulus II) is exempt.

Pet federal education programs will be exempt (including $4 billion for the White House “Race to the Top” standards initiative and an additional $1.35 billion he just requested in the 2011 budget). Green jobs spending will be exempt. (Obama proposed $10 billion in new clean energy spending earlier this month.) Electorally driven tax-credit expansions will be exempt. The health care takeover plan is not included. As even The New York Times reported, the “estimated $250 billion in savings over 10 years would be less than 3 percent of the roughly $9 trillion in additional deficits the government is expected to accumulate over that time.”

Which amounts to a molecule in a drop of the ocean of red ink in which American taxpayers have been drowning.

The current Spender-in-Chief unveiled details of this lofty new work of political fiction on Monday with more fanfare than a new “Twilight” title. It was supposed to be the centerpiece of the State of the Union address. But by Tuesday morning, Obama’s illusion of fiscal discipline had been shredded left, right and center. By Tuesday afternoon, irritated White House spokesman Robert Gibbs was already downplaying the gimmickry. It’s just something Obama will “mention,” Gibbs bristled.

After campaign videos of Obama repeatedly deriding “hatchet”-wielding spending freezes spread like Kudzu across the Internet, official White House blogger Jared Bernstein tried to control the widespread hypocrisy charges:

“During the campaign, you may recall that John McCain touted option 1 — the hatchet approach of an across-the-board freeze.

“The President was critical of that approach then, …

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