Hewitt Blog

you ought to attend this seminar by my law partner Gary Wolensky.

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My new Townhall.com column is up.



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Today's show will feature a leading thinker of the right --Mark Steyn-- and of the left --Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig-- assessing why President Obama's first year in office has been such a failure.

Professor Lessig's critique is in the new issue of The Nation, and is titled "How To Get Our Democracy Back." 

In the course of his article, Professor Lessig conducts a drive-by on my friend and frequent guest Congressman John Campbell  As Campbell is among the most ethical and honorable of men I have ever met in public life, Lessig and I will certainly have much to talk about.  Including why the constitutional convention Lessig is calling for is the worst idea of a generation.

Duane will post transcripts of the Steyn and Lessig interviews here, and the audio of the Lessig interview in this post later tonight.  Your reactions to both are welcome at my blog at The Hughniverse.

02-04hhs-lessig.mp3

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My friend Rhett Smith is headed next week to Haiti with a team from Adventures in Missions.

Rhett was an early participant in the Godblog conferences while college pastor at Bel Air Presbyterian Church in LA.  He now lives in Texas, and I can guarantee you that the reporting of his team will be as accurate and as different as that of Team Rubicon's was from much of MSM's over the past month.

Rhett's post has the team's Facebook and Twitter feed --the hashtag is #ymath-- so follow both for continued focus on the victims of the earthquake.

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An e-mail from an experienced prosecutor:

There is an aspect to this debate that is being wholly overlooked, and   this aspect 100% undermines the proposition that it was "right" or 
"necessary" to Mirandize Abdulmutallab once he was taken into custody.

 Read More...

I will interview Team Rubicon founder Jake Wood on today's show in the third hour. 

Here is the audio of that interview.

02-03hhs-wood.mp3 

Today President Obama told Senate Democrats that they had faced "enormous procedural obstacles that are unprecedented.."

"You had to cast more votes to break filibusters last year than in the entire 1950s and 1960s combined.  That's 20 years of obstruction jammed into just one."

This is astonishing.  A filibuster is the successful use of 41 or more votes to prevent the closing of debate.  There wasn't a single filibuster in 2009.  Not one.

The president will say anything to advance a narrative that makes him a victim of obstruction.  It is clear that 2010 will be spent pivoting from his 2009 mantra of Bush's fault to his campaign year blasts at the "do nothing Republicans."

His advisors must foresee grim news on jobs to offer up such a transparent and unpersuasive, indeed almost purposefully alienating argument. 

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This little exchange took place on the floor of the House of Representatives.



If the leadership has no idea what's going on when they're naming a post office after someone, how are they going to successfully get Obamacare right? 

From the in-box:

I am a avid listener from Canada. You may be interested to know that my sister in British Columbia got an appointment for April 2013 to see a surgeon about a reduction mammoplasty.

Another reason to visit TearUpYourCard.com and join the conservative alternative to AARP, which is pushing for the resurrection of Obamacare.

The president was campaigning for Obamacare yesterday, asking Republicans "You got a better idea?"  The answer should be, "We gave them to you on Friday.  You still haven't read them.  And they begin with serious tort reform.  No health care reform without serious tort reform.  No punishing seniors and doctors without reigning in plaintiffs' lawyers."

 

Former Indiana congressman and senator and Ambassador to Germany Dan Coats has entered the Senate race against Indiana's Evan Bayh.  (HT: Chris Cillizza.)  Though he is far behind Bayh in money raised --and Roll Call has a chart of where every Senate candidate stands on fundraising here-- Coats is the sort of conservative who can tap into the Tea Party energy and immediately draw close to Bayh, whose support for Obamacare was decisive throughout 2009.