My calendar is broken.

Help. I need someone to send me a new calendar. Mine is broken.

Today is CLEARLY not February 10th...it HAS to be April Fool's Day:

"Piece of mind?"

These people are running your government and taking over your health care. *shudder*

From the official White House twitter feed:

Schadenfreudalicious

Republicans in 2008: "Obama's ideas for health care reform are not good. We don't like this."

Democrats in 2008: "No, this will be awesome. Just wait."

Starbucks awkwardly takes sides in the #shutdown

I woke up this morning and found this email in my inbox from Starbucks, asking me to sign the "Come Together" petition:

NBC misses half the story in long-winded attempt to pin blame for shutdown on GOP

Yeah, yeah, keep saying there's no liberal media bias. 

Explain this little gem from NBC News today about who has the power to end the government shutdown:

Senator John Cornyn: Obama's shutdown strategy is to "maximize the pain" of the American people

Cornyn from his days on the
Texas Supreme Court

Last night, Texas Senator John Cornyn held a conference call with conservative bloggers and journalists. As we enter Day 2 of the government shutdown, his comments from just a few hours ago are becoming even more relevant as the day goes on. Thought I'd share some of my notes from the call with you.

Looks like Jim DeMint and I have something in common

He's got his eye on us.

...neither one of us should try traveling in Russia any time soon.

Late Wednesday evening, I posted a snarky little tweet in response to Vladimir Putin's New York Times op-ed...

Hey Putin, next time you wanna write a letter to convince America about something, how about you skip saying we're not exceptional? #rude
— Sarah Rumpf (@rumpfshaker) September 12, 2013

Opposition to Syria intervention inspires FreedomWorks to change long-standing policy

Forward? Or For War? Is this the new "red line"?

As POLITICO reported yesterday, conservative organization FreedomWorks had taken the unusual step of publicly opposing the congressional resolution authorizing the use of military force in Syria, and would consider it a "key vote" in its next round of congressional scorecards.

I say "unusual" step because before now, FreedomWorks has maintained a strict policy of staying out of foreign policy issues. It's a risk for political organizations to venture into new philosophical territory, because they build relationships with supporters, stakeholders, and donors based on their areas of expertise and influence, and they may endanger those relationships if the organization takes on new issues and their supporters don't agree with them. 

Senators Cruz and Rubio mount new attack on Obamacare; opposing new continuing resolution [VIDEO]

Today, Texas Senator Ted Cruz introduced legislation, co-sponsored by Senators Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Jim Risch (R-ID), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rand Paul (R-KY), Roy Blunt (R-MO), John Barrasso (R-WY), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Paul Isakson (R-GA), and Dean Heller (R-NV), to fully defund Obamacare. The bill is appropriately named the "Defund Obamacare Act of 2013."

Oops. Maybe Verizon should have revised their privacy policies. [UPDATED]

Another week, another invasion of privacy and violation of rights for regular citizens. It's becoming quite an alarming routine from the Obama administration, isn't it? 

The latest "Are You Kidding Me?!" story is how the NSA has been collecting records from tens of millions of Verizon wireless customers in the U.S. under a top-secret court order, including "the numbers of both parties on a call are handed over, as is location data, call duration, unique identifiers, and the time and duration of all calls." 

Image by Ben Howe

Even Frankie Muniz gets it - Promoting Susan Rice is an #ObamaFail

Susan Rice has been a disaster as UN Ambassador, so of course Obama is rewarding her with a promotion; she will be Obama's new National Security Adviser.

Why it's a big deal that the White House Counsel knew about the IRS audit findings

2013's best new carnival ride, the Obama White House Scandalpalooza, continues to spit out new shocking headlines on a daily basis, and I wanted to put a spotlight on one detail regarding the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS. 

The administration admitted yesterday that the Office of the White House Counsel was informed about the findings of the IRS audit weeks ago - including specifically informing Kathryn Ruemmler, the Senior White House Counsel and the head of the office. 

President Obama somehow knew nothing about the whole mess until he saw it in the press with the rest of us little people. 

Why is this a big deal? 

Because attorneys have a ethical duty to keep their clients informed. 

Rubio on #IRSscandal - "These are the Tactics of the Third World" [VIDEO]

Florida Senator Marco Rubio had harsh words for the Obama administration in a floor speech he delivered today [video of full speech and text of selected excerpts after the break]:

Ted Cruz is Not Impressed

Too funny. From Twitchy: 

Awesome SOTU GIF: Ted Cruz is not impressed with Obama; McCain does the ‘Shamnesty Shake’ 

There’s no contest. This is the best image to come out of Tuesday night’s State of the Union address.

Metahypocrisy at BuzzFeed

Sometimes the story isn't really the story...

Yesterday, BuzzFeed posted an article, "7 Things Democrats Would Have Freaked Out About If Bush Had Done Them."

Now, BuzzFeed isn't exactly known for being necessarily friendly to conservatives. Their treatment of a recent interview with Senator Marco Rubio drew criticism for its slanted portrayal of him, although Rubio handled it with his typical grace. Still, yesterday's post was a pretty vicious takedown of the Left's hypocrisy about certain foreign policy decisions by the Obama administration:

Are we going backwards?

Yesterday was Barack Obama's second inauguration as President, and the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as well. As expected, the festivities of the day included a number of references to Dr. King as well as our sixteenth President, Abraham Lincoln.

America's first black President, elected to a second term, sworn into office on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, taking the oath with the Bible of the President who freed the slaves. It should have been a triumph for civil rights...but is it really?

Rubio responds to Obama's gun policy announcement

After President Obama had his press conference earlier today announcing his ideas for gun control policies, Senator Marco Rubio's office sent out the following statement in response, "reiterating his support for the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens:"

Marco Rubio demands end to "Washington's reckless spending"

Senator Marco Rubio published an op-ed in USA Today yesterday, emphatically stating that any increase in the debt ceiling must be accompanied by real and significant spending cuts, as well as entitlement reforms:

Here's what your smaller paychecks get you, America!

I present the bang-your-head-on-the-wall news of the day...

In praise of simplicity

'Tis the gift to be simple,
'Tis the gift to be free...

- lyrics from "Simple Gifts," traditional Shaker folk song written and composed in 1848 by Elder Joseph Brackett

I'm writing from a coffee shop in Washington, D.C. this morning and my online news feed is full of discussions about this fiscal cliff mess: what the President is proposing, how the Republicans are reacting, whether there is any chance of a deal, how bad it will hurt our economy if we go off this fiscal cliff, whether it's even remotely possible to avoid it, and so on.

What frustrates me is that, as usual, the debate in this town misses the main point - neither side is taking any steps to address why we're in this mess in the first place.