Last week, the Illinois legislature passed a massive income tax increase on individuals and businesses.  Overall, it represents about a 67 percent income tax increase.

In response, neighboring states of Wisconsin and Indiana have wisely mounted massive campaigns to suck businesses and people out of Illinois.  Even New Jersey’s fabulous governor, Chris Christie, plans to fish the Land o’ Lincoln for some business transplants.

One state bordering Illinois has been notoriously silent.  Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has done nothing to steal business and residents away from Illinois.

Is Nixon being lazy?  Or is he just being a good Democrat?

While we’re at it, why isn’t St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay beating the bushes on the East Side?  The city needs business and people desperately, but Slay has been as silent as Nixon.

Look, people, I realize that we have a lot of friends in Illinois.  My wife is from GC.  Most of her family lives in Madison County.  But businesses and workers are going to flee to the state.  Illinois dropped from the 23rd best tax state to the 36th in one step.  With Democrats in charge of the legislature and the governorship, this increase is only the beginning.  Illinois taxes will rise until the people in Illinois elect tax cutting budget hawks.

In the meantime, Jay Nixon has an obligation to put Missouri’s economy ahead of Democrat party loyalties.  Missouri needs to follow the leads of Indiana, Wisconsin, and New Jersey by campaigning for fleeing Illinois businesses and people.

*UPDATE* Over on United for Missouri, Emily Iles explains the extraordinary dangers to Illinois’ economy this tax hike poses.

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Just as in 2001, some Republicans are falling for Democrat mind games.  In 2001, it was the shared leadership arrangement in the Senate, even thought the GOP had the majority because of the VP tie-break.  This year, it’s beginning with “bi-partisan” seating at the State of the Union address.

I have one message for Republicans:  Knock it the hell off.

When a Democrat offers to reach across the aisle, with very few exceptions, it’s to poison a Republican.  In 2001, Democrats convinced Republicans to thwart the will of the people by letting the minority party run the show.  In 2011, Democrats want the same thing.

On November 2, 2010, the American people handed the Democrats their own behinds on a silver platter.  The left’s embarrassment and humiliation from that election has grown into a rage that resulted in last week’s failed attempt to blame conservatives for Jarod Lee Loughner’s murderous rampage in Tucson.

Having been discredited and humiliated in that failed attempt at propaganda, the left now wants to nullify the psychological effect of the SOTU seating chart.  Two House GOP leaders—Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy—told Politico that they’re on board with this symbolic manure.  Let’s tell them what we think of their idiotic plan to nullify the visuals of November 2.

Eric Cantor’s phone number:  804.747-4073

Kevin McCarthy’s phone:  (202) 225-2915

Doug Powers (on Michelle Malkin’s blog) says it’ll all end with a pajama party. 

Remember, that other party is the one libeling conservatives, accusing us of being accessories to murder. 

Popularity: 2% [?]

Obama Productions Inc.

Garish chic. No other way to describe it.

Where were the Greek columns?  No official sponsors?  Why not GM and Goldman Sachs?

While Obama’s speech was appropriate and well delivered—his best since taking office—the crass and tasteless setting, the shouting and cheering, the lack of dignity and solemnity, will mark this event as an embarrassment to the country and an affront to the families and victims.  Step one of triangulation is admitting that your base is a bunch of wacked out hatemongers.

By way of contrast:

No pomp.  No roaring crowds.

Instead of promising safety, Reagan reminded kids of the virtue of daring exploration.  “The future doesn’t belong to the faint-hearted,” he told the children.  “It belongs to the brave.”

Along with my prayers for the wounded, the fallen, and the families of all the victims, I pray that we overcome our fears.

Acting on our fears delays our certain deaths.  But acting on hope lets us live until our last day arrives.

*UPDATE*  Do you remember when President Bush went to Virginia Tech and got a whooping standing O?  Because it didn’t happen.  It was dignified.  Michelle Malkin has the video in case the White House needs a lesson in decorum.

Gateway Pundit says Obama distancing himself from the loonies who championed his election.

Popularity: 8% [?]

For  three consecutive days the hard left of American politics executed a prepared battle plan:

• Personify the Enemy (Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck)
• Isolate him or her (Rightwing vitriol, conservative talk radio, “crosshairs”)
• Vilify without mercy (Hate, violence, accessory to murder)

Democrat Mark Penn showed us the left’s cards in November when he said that Obama needs an Oklahoma bombing to help him “reconnect” with the American people.

Enabling Event: When a seriously deranged young man opened fire on a crowd of people surrounding Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson on Saturday, George Soros’ s propaganda machine went to work.

Round One: A series of blog posts and tweets shot across the internet.  The messages were scripted to create a false story: the shooter was a tea partier and Army veteran doing what all conservative do.

Round Two: The complicit press jumped in with “news” stories about Republican ads showing bulls eyes and crosshairs and containing “dangerous” words like “target.”  The media applied no filters or logic to the progressive script, presenting the Words Kill meme as fact.

Round Three:  Leftist politicians like Dick Durbin (D-IL) hit Sunday talk shows to read their scripts.  Mimicking the press, these pols state unequivocally that tea partiers and their “harsh rhetoric” killed six people in Tucson.

Round Four: Progressive members of Congress introduce legislation (prepared in advance for quick filing) to sharply limit First and Second Amendment rights.

But something happened.

This time, Conservative America didn’t lay down and let the left walk all over it.  This time, we didn’t have to rely on Republicans to show spine in the face of vicious lies.  This time, the Tea Party movement—established February 27, 2009—was ready.  This time, we were prepared to represent ourselves against the forces of darkness.

Thousands of conservative bloggers, researchers, tweeters, and pundits gave up their weekend to examine the charges and respond. Quickly we recognized patterns.  It was obvious that the leftist assault was coordinated and planned.  Markos Moulitsas and Eric Boehlert and Keith Olbermann and Bill Maher did not write their evil little libels on the fly; they merely selected “Option 984.b” from their play books and assigned “Tucson” to the variable when prompted, it seemed.

Once Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik launched his over-the-top tirade, we realized that the left was committed to all out war.

Saturday evening, Sunday, and Monday we posted our findings and our opinions.  Those with larger megaphones spoke for the millions of wrongfully accused Americans.

By Monday night, the left began wobble.

Liberal comedian Jon Stewart announced that he doesn’t buy the left’s story that Jarod Lee Loughner is a product of conservative politics.

On Tuesday, more liberals began to back away from the abyss into which so many of their fellows had willingly marched.

Erica Payne said don’t blame the tea party:

The blame for this heinous act lies squarely with the voices in Jared Lee Loughner’s head, not the ones pontificating over talk radio. And repugnant as I find Sarah and her cosmic boyfriend, they are not responsible for the violent actions of a single crazy person.

Barbara Walters says not to blame Palin:

“This is a deranged young man. This is a Timothy McVeigh… We don’t know what his motives are and we can hope that all the vitriol calms down. But to blame Sarah Palin as some are doing I think is very unfair to her,” Walters added.

Salon’s Steve Kornacki actually admitted to speaking too soon:

But it should also be noted that what we have learned so far about Loughner defies ideological branding. Based on his MySpace page and series of YouTube videos he apparently made, Loughner is fixated on his area’s literacy rate, government “mind control methods,” and … something having to do with America’s currency. A high school classmate describes him as “left-wing.” He also is apparently fond of “Mein Kampf” and Karl Marx and may be somehow connected to a fringe anti-immigration group. And he despised Giffords. Make what you will of all of that. My hunch is that Lougnher is just basically crazy, and that his political thinking isn’t particularly coherent or organized.

(h/t Jennifer Rubin of WaPo)

Former Politico journalist, Josh Kraushaar, calls out his old blog and media in general:

And in the aftermath of the Tucson shooting, the media’s worst tendencies were on display, from the onset of the crisis when several outlets inaccurately reported that Giffords had died, to the immediate, unwarranted assumption that the killer was associated with the tea party.

These might be acts of conscience. Or is it self-preservation?

The Hill reports (via Gateway Pundit) that only 32 percent blame “rhetoric” for the Tucson shooting.  It’s sad that 32 percent of the people either manufacture or swallow whole vicious lies about decent people. But the poll could spell big trouble for the left.

Saturdays’ shootings and murders were horrific. They require mourning and grief.  Many of us suspended or suppressed those feelings because of lies perpetrated by the most prominent names in leftist politics:  Kos, Boehlert, Olbermann, Matthews, Clinton, Durbin, Fonda, and more.

The left, particularly the press, exploited a tragedy and toyed with raw human emotions in order to slander their political opponents.  When that fact sinks in, the American people, including many liberals, will be furious.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Seth Godin’s daily blogs are amazingly timely.

Today Seth talked about having someone’s back.  He explained that the time we need to feel that someone has our back is when things are tough, not when they’re going well.

No, if you want her to go all in, if you want her to take the risk and brave the fear, then it sure helps if you’re there too, no matter what. There’s a cost to that, a pain and risk that comes from that sort of trust. After all, it might not work. Failure (or worse! embarrassment) might ensue. That’s precisely why it’s worth so much. Because it’s difficult and scarce.

If you’re wondering why so many tea partiers responded so forcefully to the left’s cynical and exploitive attempt to politicize the Tucson tragedy, this is why: we’ve got each other’s backs.

Whether I like it or not, there are people—good people—who are Tea Partiers because I opened my mouth.  That’s not to say I’m some sort of hero.  It’s to say that I incurred an obligation to those who followed my lead.

When cretins in the media libel good men and women whose only crime is showing up at events I helped organized, I get really, really unhappy.  When a county sheriff who neglected his duties for years blames me for a horrendous crime perpetrated on his watch, I respond. I know no other way.

That’s why we preempted the NAACP’s vile bigotry. That’s why we relentlessly attack the left’s stream of bile over Tucson.

It’s not because we’re particularly brave or heroic, but because we seem to have an inherent understanding of duty.  Speaking for myself, it’s how I was raised. It’s what the Navy and Dominican Sisters taught me, reinforcing lessons from home.  I only wish that I were as loyal and fearless as my friends.  I’m not.

I suspect that our motives won’t make sense to leftists. I’m not sure progressives have the capacity to understand sacrifice for others.

To contrast that tiny cadre of progressives with our side, I’ll let you in on a little secret: some tea partiers who don’t like me.  Some of us on the right don’t get along.  Some of us like each other but don’t work well together.  And yet . . .

And yet, when the chips are down, when our “movement” faces its greatest challenges, when we have every opportunity and reason to save ourselves and forget our comrades, we seems to rise to the occasion. In crisis, conservatives lift their game, and liberals descend into the abyss.

I know others have my back . . . I don’t even have to look.

The vast majority of Americans now see the left’s callous exploitation for what it was. So do some honest liberals, like Jon Stewart.

Popularity: 1% [?]