First and foremost, there are two must-read articles that have come across my desk today that I wanted to share with you.

Cathy Ruse of the Family Research Council wrote a blog post about The Washington Post’s blatant attempts to smear conservative candidates in the Commonwealth. Ruse focuses on Steve Hunt, who is running for State Senate in the 37^th District, and how the Post is working hard to smear his candidacy for standing up for marriage and families. (Note: The special election will take place on January 12.)

Also, The Washington Times published an op-ed by State Senator Mark Obenshain (R-Harrisonburg). Obenshain takes Virginia’s U.S. Senators, Jim Webb and Mark Warner, to task for their recent votes for the health care bill. This is spot-on analysis.

Obenshain says:

Outrageous, right? What did our intrepid duo in the U.S. Senate do to stand strong for the rights and interests of Virginians? Absolutely nothing. They fell right in line with Mr. Reid and the rest of the Democrats in the Senate and voted for this abomination. They required little coaxing and no incentives. Jim Webb may have been “born fighting,” but he did not hesitate to run up the white flag here.

This is not the garden-variety pork, the proverbial lard that has long greased the wheels of Congress. It is now evidently acceptable to exempt entire states from costly mandates if that is what it takes to secure one more vote. Even if it was too much to ask Messrs. Warner and Webb to break ranks with the president and their leadership over the government takeover of health care (something to which Virginians and Americans have expressed their overt opposition and which threatens to transform fundamentally the landscape of our freedoms as we know them), Virginians nonetheless had every right to expect them to reject these crass deals doled out to the states of their recalcitrant colleagues.

Messrs. Warner and Webb signed off on a plan that makes Virginia the loser coming and going. Not only must we shoulder an increased Medicaid burden, which could not come at a worse time for Virginia’s taxpayers, but all those sweetheart deals come with a price tag, and we are the ones left holding (and footing) the bill – a bill we cannot begin to pay.