Starting tomorrow, a new series of rallies will showcase Americans across the country publicly fighting back against job-killing policies, including President Obama's politically-motivated deep water oil and gas drilling moratorium.

The events, known as the Rally for Jobs series, are intended to highlight how vital the energy industry is to the American economy and how affordable energy is necessary for economic growth. According to the official website:

More energy equals more jobs, higher incomes and greater economic growth. We must come together to tell Washington that our livelihoods depend on the oil and natural gas industry and consumers who rely on access to affordable energy will not be overlooked...

There's an important new documentary film coming out soon that we had to tell you about.

Called I Want Your Money, it's a no-holds-barred critique of the over-reaching nature of the federal government under the Obama Administration and the current Congress.

Combining in-depth interviews (there's one with Newt), fiery criticism and politically-charged animated sequences, it tells the story in the plainest terms of the choice between the Obama and the Reagan views of the role of the federal government in our society. It also examines how these big government programs have been tried in the past at great moral and financial cost to the nation.

 
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For a White House that is supposed to be focused on job creation as its number one priority, this latest news will no doubt call the sincerity of that focus into question.

Previously undisclosed documents, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, show that the Obama administration foresaw its moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico killing 23,000 jobs, but proceeded with the ban anyway:

[The documents] show the new top regulator or offshore oil exploration, Michael Bromwich, told Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that a six-month deepwater-drilling halt would result in "lost direct employment" affecting approximately 9,450 workers and "lost jobs from indirect and induced effects" affecting about 13,797 more. The July 10 memo cited an analysis by Mr. Bromwich's agency that assumed direct employment on affected rigs would "resume normally once the rigs resume operations..."

"What can we do?!"
 
You hear that question a lot these days. It is often a frustrated response to the socialist direction of our federal government...or liberal schemes in a City Hall or Statehouse.
 
Millions of Americans are new to the conservative movement. They have become more intensely concerned about politics because of reckless deficit spending, unemployment, corruption and scandal.
 
We need to turn their frustration into activism.
 
Remember the joke about the teacher asking a student, "Which is worse -- ignorance or apathy?" The student replied, "I don't know and I don't care." It's funny, but it raises a serious point. It's not enough to know that America is heading in the wrong direction. And it's not enough to just care. We need to effectively act.
 
Newt's new book sums up the challenge: "To Save America." And he proposes specific solutions. But we must campaign for solutions at every level - local, state and national.
 
Community organizers have been training liberal activists for years, and they succeeded in electing one of their own as President. We conservatives must do more to beat them at their own game: organizing, protesting, persuading... Complaining isn't enough.
   
How can one citizen make a difference? Here are some of the ways.

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Since taking office President Obama and his liberal allies in Congress have promised to create jobs, even as their destructive policies are killing jobs and stifling economic growth, particularly with America's small businesses.

In the 10 year period from 1996 to 2006, small businesses accounted for nearly 40 percent of total U.S. employment, according to a survey conducted by American Solutions, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., that we co-founded.  Workers employed by small businesses increased by 4.2 million or approximately 11 percent.

But small firms are bearing the brunt of the current recession. David Altig and Melinda Pitts of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta report that job losses for American businesses with fewer than 50 employees reflect 45 percent of total job loss in the current recession compared to just 9 percent in the 2001 recession.

Small business owners are voicing their concerns. Respondents in American Solutions' monthly small business survey in July cited high compliance costs related to OSHA, EPA and IRS reporting regulations as "a significant strain." One in five small business owners estimated that reducing these restrictions by half could save their company as much as $50,000 annually.
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Our very own energy guru Steve Everley (pictured, fittingly, on the right) participated in a debate on energy policy recently in Chicago.  The event pitted Steve against David Roberts of Grist.org and was moderated by Mark McGrath from the band Sugar Ray.  The debate was sponsored by Lexus and was the last of six debates they held across the country to discuss America's energy future.

Although we're a little biased on who won (hint: Steve), we hear it was light-hearted affair between two very well informed people.  Somehow, even Snooki made its way into the conversation.

The in-person debate in Chicago was an outgrowth of a substantive three-day debate hosted by Salon.com between Everley and Roberts over cap and trade.  Check out day 1 here, day 2 here, and day 3 here. more »