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For those who think Fox News is not fair and balanced, we give you this: Tonight, on Special Report with Brett Baier, Washington Post editorial page writer Charles Lane joined the panel discussion. On the subject of Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), the House Budget Committee chairman, running for president, Mr. Lane actually said this:

He has no foreign policy experience, he has no executive experience.

Either he is admitting the Barack Obama is a failure or he truly thinks Paul Ryan is not qualified to be president. Clarifying a moment later, he admitted he meant the latter, not understanding the ironic hypocrisy. Seriously, now, why does anyone (except, of course, themselves) take liberal pundits seriously?

Governor Bob McDonnell, no stranger to the television political talk shows since his 2009 landslide election, will appear on the granddaddy of them all Sunday with an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press. He’ll have some atypical company in fellow guests left-winger David Axelrod, one of President Barack Obama’s closest and most trusted confidants, and Democrat-Turned-RINO-turned-independent left wing New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Topics include the 2012 presidential race and the economy. Expect host David Gregory to ask Governor McDonnell, the vice chairman of the Republican Governors Association, about his interest in the 2012 GOP vice presidential nomination. The governor also has been vocal about the U.S. Supreme Court’s consideration and eventual refusal to expedite the hearing of Virginia’s legal challenge to the federal health care takeover (see statement). Late last year, Federal Judge Henry Hudson ruled the law unconstitutional (as has a federal judge in Florida). The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear the federal government’s appeal in Richmond next week. Check your local listings for the Meet the Press broadcast. Check back here for ObamaCare coverage next week.

It’s ironic that while the rest of the world is moving toward economic freedom to ignite their economies, United States, under the governance of Washington’s liberal elites, has retreated from liberty. It’s true. While countries such as Denmark, Ireland, Canada, Switzerland, New Zealand and Australia were high-tailing forward, we moved backward, and Bahrain — Bahrain — is nipping at our heels.

These are the conclusions of the The Wall Street Journal/Heritage Foundation annual Index of Economic Freedom. In fact, the report states that the U.S. score, which dropped to ninth in the study, fell from the ranks of the “economically free nations” to that of the “mostly free” ranks. According to the study, the U.S. decline was . . .

largely the result of large government spending increases and passage of President Barack Obama’s health care plan, which severely restricts consumer choice and private health care markets while increasing the size and cost of government.

Also of note is that more than half of the 183 countries in the survey improved their economic freedom, seeking to untangle their governments from the private sector to emerge from recession rather than increasing government’s role (see Theodore Bromund at Heritage’s The Foundry). The report rated countries’ fiscal soundness and openness to trade and investment, government size, business and labor regulation, property rights, corruption, monetary stability and financial competition.

According to Virginia Fourth District Congressman Randy Forbes, who blogs about the study here:

It is clear that huge increases in government spending have impacted our economic freedom as a nation and it shows us that reining in government spending must be a top priority for the 112th Congress. Our nation was built on the premise that we are the “land of the free,” and that includes economic freedom. “Mostly free” should not be an economic option for the United States.

We now are in a period where big government not only threatens our liberty with ever increasing control over our decisions, but with the incomprehensible debt it has accrued in doing so. Debt enslaves people and societies to those to whom it owes the money. That those debts will never be called in is no longer realistic. We may always be be the home of the brave, but land of the free is not a guarantee.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano doesn’t know how many days are in a year (see imao.us). It’s an example of why Mark Steyn has hung the moniker ”Janet Incompetano” on her. But you hardly blame her. Her boss, President Barack Obama, thinks there are 57 states, pronounces corpsman “corpsemen,” doesn’t know the difference between Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day, or even the national motto, nor one of the most powerful lines of the Declaration of Independence. This qualifies her as brilliant in liberal circles.

Keep them guessing: At least she didn’t tell the enemy which day the department takes off!

When Barack Obama says conservatives have no new ideas, he has a point: Although returning to a limited constitutional democratic republic method of governing is an idea more than 200 years old, it’s still the best political idea ever put into practice in the history of the world. Sometimes, the best ideas aren’t necessarily the new ones, nor even the old ones. The best ideas are the timeless ones.

While many Virginians are worried about the economy, their jobs, the country’s third-world-like debt, and the mountainous problems facing the country, Barack Obama is going on Comedy Central’s Daily Show With Jon Stewart. Now, he’s bringing his routine to the stage . . . in Charlottesville today to tell the good people of the fifth Congressional district  to re-elect one of his biggest enablers, Democrat Congressman Tom Perriello. (It’s not the first time he’s brought his brand of humor to Virginia in recent weeks, either.)

But if you are in the area or want to break for an early weekend, you can go to Mr. Jefferson’s hometown for another reason: At 4:00 at Charlottesville’s Lee Park, located downtown at the intersection of 2nd Street NE and Market Street, there will be a counter rally sponsored by Americans For Prosperity’s Virginia chapter. AFP national President Tim Phillips and other noteworthies will speak.

Mr. Obama repeatedly has disparaged political opponents since taking office, recently asking Hispanic voters to “punish enemies.” He has accused organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce of illegal activities, with no evidence, and said others, such as AFP, are bought and paid for by foreign campaign contributions (see Jake Tapper’s ABC News Political Punch blog) .

Desperation, indeed. Here’s an opportunity for Virginians to show the president and Mr. Periello that Virginians have an honest and profound difference with them on their massive government intrusion into private enterprise, and their incomprehensible government spending, taxing and debt. We hope, but are not expecting, an honest discussion from the president and the congressman.

They say you can judge one’s character by the company he or she keeps. Not surprisingly, Virginia 9th District U.S. Representative Rick Boucher is keeping company with the nefarious, abortion-at-all-costs liberal pressure group NARAL, which works hand-in-hand with the equally devious Planned Parenthood. Not one satisfied only to guarantee so-called “abortion choice,” NARAL works to make partial-birth abortion — a procedure that kills a baby near full term and able to live outside the womb — legal. Now it’s come to light that NARAL is throwing in with Rep. Boucher’s re-election campaign.  

Mr. Boucher tries to position himself as a moderate despite his voting record (he received a 25 percent rating on the FRC scorecard and a 22 percent rating on economic issues from the Club For Growth), and the status as one of one of Barack Obama’s favorite members of the House. Not calling off NARAL and the extremism it propels won’t help counter that way-left-of-center record he’s accumulated, nor his out-of-touch persona developed in 28years of holding office in Washington. (Did you hear about his car purchase with campaign funds?)  

Recent polls show Rep. Boucher’s opponent, House of Delegates Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, who is pro-life, closing fast, which may be a sign as to why NARAL has joined the fight on Mr. Boucher’s behalf. That’s usually a sign, anyway: when the cover of an ally is blown, or when he or she is in desperate straights, the radical group figures it has nothing to lose and comes riding in hard and fast. The voters of Virginia’s 9th Congressional district must decide how much it has to lose by having a representative from NARAL as their congressman.

Today is the 223rd anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution, know as Constitution or Citizenship Day. Not surprisingly, polls are finding that a vast majority of Americans are woefully under-educated about the Constitution and its principles.

One poll found two-thirds of Americans admit they don’t have a clue what our nation’s foundational document says. This extraordinary failure of our education system is having a devastating impact on our society and culture. Not understanding the basic principles of our government, its duties and the restrictions our Founding Fathers placed on it, is at least partially responsible for the mess we now have in Washington, D.C. Blame the politicians, yes. But the fact remains that as long as Americans continue to vote for people like President Barack Obama, whose vision for our nation is thoroughly alien to that which our Founders created and to what the constitution actually states — as illustrated by his vast expansion of government — we are going to continue to get what we deserve.

One simple way to reconnect with our founding principles is to read the U.S. Constitution, which we highly encourage, especially on this anniversary day each year. Click here to read it if you haven’t in a while. To see what one group is doing to improve constitutional literacy, and how you can help, click here.

Also on the front page of many newspapers today are reports that the poverty rate in the United States, to no one’s surprise, has risen. Of course, most of the articles quote left-leaning politicians or think tanks that are quick to blame the government for not doing enough to take care of people in need. Unfortunately, because so many Americans don’t know what our constitution says, or what our Founders meant by what it says, the message that “the government needs to do more” often finds support.

What the articles don’t mention is that, according to the Heritage Foundation, “since the beginning of the War on Poverty, the U.S. has spent $15.9 trillion on means-tested welfare. And today, spending on welfare programs is 13 times greater than it was in 1964.” Yet poverty continues to rise.

The articles choose to ignore the far more dramatic impact that family fragmentation and out-of-wedlock births have on poverty. For example, “children born to single mothers . . . are five times more likely to live in poverty than children born to married parents. Today, over 40 percent of children are born outside wedlock, and the numbers are particularly devastating for Hispanics (51.3 percent) and African-Americans (71.6 percent).” Marriage drops the probability of child poverty by an astonishing 82 percent.

We conservatives often are accused of focusing on “divisive” social issues such as marriage and abortion at the expense of “more important” issues like the economy and poverty. But it is, in fact, our concern about those in poverty that requires us to do more to promote and strengthen marriage. We can choose to continue down the route we’ve been following since 1964 and apply band-aid solutions after the fact, or we can do the hard work of providing the only long-range solution to poverty — stable marriages and families.

Far Left Liberals, aided by the Mainstream Media echo chamber (redundant, again, I know), call conservatives “extreme” without impunity. It’s a knee-jerk response to anyone who disagrees with its Big Government Control agenda. It’s what the Far Left means by “tolerance” — agree with us or we’ll distort and caricature your positions as fact and make you out to be a loon.

Well, now, just who are the extremists? According to poll after poll, on numerous and various issues, it looks like the American people have a decidedly different view as to who the extremists are. Many are cited in the video below and it doesn’t even scratch the surface of polls and issues. Time, of course, is always a constraint, especially as the MSM and its zombie followers are so wrong so often.

But the best thing about this video is its Virginia connection: former Governor Tim Kaine makes not one, but two star appearances, with high-voltage over-the-top rhetoric. So much for that mild mannered, consensus building, “moderate” who ran our commonwealth into the ground while taking orders from his boss, President Barack Obama, as head of the Democrat National Committee. Now, after leaving Capitol Square, we see the real Tim Kaine, unmasked as the mouthpiece of the Fringe Left Wing, a faction so delusional it thinks it represents American thought. The next time a liberal calls you “extreme,” show them this video.

On Tuesday, “It Had To Be Said.” Today, it had to be shown. The truth on extremism in American politics.

Sinking in the polls and facing the largest wave election since 1946 (a GOP gain of 55 House and 12 Senate seats, see Ashbrook.org), the Obama administration reportedly isn’t waiting for October. Instead, as several sources report, the president is planning an August surprise and deal a ”fairness card” (again, turning the language on its head); a Main Street bailout rather than a Wall Street bailout (which he engineered, though he blames it on Republicans).

The reported plan is that Barack Obama will instruct Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which he the federal government now owns, to forgive up to 20 percent of underwater mortgage balances (see Liz Peek wowOwow’s sheconomics blog). Forget redistribution of wealth and spreading the wealth around. Just outright order it to be given away. 

As usual with this misguided regime, there’s a better idea. Writes Capitol Securities Management Chief Economic Strategist and Managing Director Kent Engelke in his daily Early Morning Commentary today:    

There are rumors that on or about August 17 the Administration will propose up to a 20% deduction of any Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae or FHA mortgages balances that are underwater. In my view this would cause a political firestorm on both sides of the political aisle.

Instead of taking this radical step, I propose the doubling or tripling of the mortgage interest deduction for all home owners for the next two years. Yes this change would create a revenue shortfall but it will increase the monies in consumer’s pockets which should in turn increase housing prices and stimulate economic demand.

Engelke notes that such tax credits have worked in stemming, or even turning around, previous bubble-caused crises. For example, about eight years ago, the Congress and president approved an “accelerated depreciation schedule for many capital expenditure items purchased between 2001 and 2003,” which accelerated the recovery in the aftermath of the dotcom bubble. 

Something needs to be done — and fast. Families are hurting. Weekly unemployment claims jumped again today, even above an upward revision of last week’s increase (CNNMoney.com)! Yet, the only answers — all devastatingly wrong — from Washington’s liberal, left-wing leadership are more taxes, more borrowing and blowing it all on redistributionist themes. Remember when Nancy Pelosi said unemployment benefits create jobs? (See Neil Braithwaite at American Thinker.)  This new plan exceeds that.

Forget those who struggle and play by the rules and make their payments. Those who don’t apparently will just get it for free, except that nothing is free. Instead, homeowners, already struggling, will have to pay twice.