Thoughts on CPAC

The American Conservative Union just finished hosting the 2013 version of CPAC. This was looked at as a meeting where we could turn the tide and put the party back on the winning path after losing an election that should have been a runaway fro every GOP candidate.

The ACU doomed the narrative from the beginning by not inviting the GOP Proud--a group of gay conservatives and republicans--and omitting Chris Christie. The former because they are, well, gay and the religious right still holds sway and the latter because he essentially gave Obama the election by inviting him, praising him and posing with him in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy (a premature declaration of success while thousands of homes are still in ruins, BTW).

We as a party have got to start examining exactly where we stand on issues. Whether it be gay marriage, immigration or drug policy, we have been marginalized because of our lack of inclusiveness. I credited Romney losing to Obama to the fact that the Dems put the GOP in a corner. We are considered by a great many Americans as the party that hates gays, minorities and wants to outlaw abortion over everything else. There was a Facebook article that went viral saying that Romney wanted to ban tampons if he were elected. It was ubiquitous and I believe it helped push the election to Obama. Of course it's ridiculous that anyone would believe it but we have been so marginalized that the non-political junkie type voter would believe it to be true. Think about it, there was outrage that the US military supposedly flushed a Koran down the toilet at Gitmo even though it's physically impossible.

But getting back to CPAC, there was some good things that came out of there: Bobby Jindal, Ted Cruz and Dr. Ben Carson were standouts. Sarah Palin got her shots in at Bloomberg and Obama and the crown failed to take the bait when a set up by supporters of Ashley Judd failed miserably. But we need to shed the image of not being inclusive. The three men I listed above are in order: an Indian-American, a Latino and an African-American; that's inclusive but we fail to get that message out with a clear voice.

We've got a few more years to get the ship righted and an increasingly deep bench but we need to take the steps in that direction starting today.

Romney/Ryan 2012

Mitt has made his pick and I think he chose...wisely. He did it via iPhone app too.

I wrote a couple of months ago why I liked Ryan and haven't changed my mind. Paul Ryan is a smart conservative who knows his positions inside and out and knows policy better than anyone. He also has a beautiful family, has no baggage that I've heard about, speaks with calmness and confidence, has been beat up by the media and interest groups and has the scars to prove it and is an all-around nice guy. Plus he's an outdoorsman and unlike Palin, they won't be able to demonize him for taking down big game.

That said, some of the aspects of this pick that the media will harp on are the following:

• He's white
• He's unabashedly conservative
• He's white
• He wants to seriously cut spending top-to-bottom including social security
• He's really white
• He's religious
• He's the whitest white man in America

Race will play a huge part in this because Paul Ryan has a plan and that plan is a good one. Obama has no plan, his budget got panned unanimously. Since the media can't hit Ryan for being either dumb or reckless, they will hit him as cold and unfeeling. We will see a multitude of stories where old people will have the shit scared out of them by Ryan's plan as described by the media. Fortunately, Ryan now has a platform whereby he can fight back against the media horde that has mischaracterized his ideas from day one. Hilariously, we see the New Yorker come out of the gate with this story saying that Ryan is not a good pick because he has no private industry experience. Funny because either do Obama nor Biden.

I like the pick and now we get set for a true race pitting fiscal conservatives against pseudo socialists. Keynes, Krugman and Obama vs. Hayek, Milton Friedman and Paul Ryan.

Update: Byron York has it right. This will be an election of ideas and no one has ideas like Paul Ryan for fixing what is wrong. He articulates those ideas in clear terms and doesn't mince words when it comes to discussing the dire fiscal situation we are now in under Obama. The left will try to demonize him at every turn but Ryan has seen it before and always keeps his cool. Two clear sides fighting for the soul of America; pass the popcorn.

CPAC Moments

The Conservative Political Action Conference took place this week and had what you would expect of the conservative establishment attend. The only one missing was Rush who seems to only want to attend every few years.

So what were the standout moments?

Of course, Ann Coulter:

And we have this amusing rap by Steven Crowder and Chris Loesch:


And finally we had the CPAC blogger awards. Verum Serum won Blog of the Year.

Update: I forgot one of the more intriguing moments. Breitbart says he has video of Obama in college and will release it during the general election. Who knows what's on it but I'm reasonably sure it will be embarrassing.

Christie Welcomes the 1% With Open Arms

With the floundering slate of candidates we have to hear from every day, is it any wonder people are pining for better choices? We see Romney and think that we could do better with Marco Rubio. We watch Gingrich and think that Mitch Daniels is more formidable. But they all pale next to Chris Christie.

Christie has shown what it means to be a conservative and has done so with wide-ranging actions but also explaining his actions in words that describe what he's doing, why he's doing it and where he plans on us being soon. We're starting to see the fruits of his labors.

Exhibit A:

Garden State Gov. Chris Christie has a message for the top 1% of income earners: Please occupy New Jersey. "I'm going to start going after a lot of these hedge-fund guys who are in Connecticut and New York and say, 'You're going to get a better deal with us,'" says the country's most important Republican not running for president.

Mr. Christie's new tax-reform plan also offers an improved deal to the bottom 99%, which is why he may be able to move it through New Jersey's Democratic legislature: a 10% cut in tax rates across the board.

The governor is two years into a four-year term. In 2010, he told the Journal's editorial board that the Garden State represented America's best example of a "failed experiment" in rising taxes and bigger government. As he returns to the Journal for another visit, it's time to check the results of his counter-experiment.

Politically, so far so good. A recent Quinnipiac poll gives him a 53% approval rating among the state's registered voters, and Mr. Christie says that private polls show him "in the low 60s."

Economically, unemployment in the state has fallen to 9% from a high of 9.8%. With almost 3.9 million people working, New Jersey has added almost 60,000 private-sector jobs since he took office, while shedding more than 21,000 government jobs. Reforms of the pension and health programs for government employees will save taxpayers an estimated $120 billion over the next 30 years. A new limit on local property-tax increases appears to be working.

Christie came in and faced serious heat for cutting back school funding that was absolutely mandatory to even attempt to bring the state's finances into order. It hit people hard with increased property taxes at the township level to make up the shortfall and became personal when school boards sulked and instituted costs for playing sports and joining school clubs.

But all along, Christie explained his thinking and said that once we got our financial house in order, we could examine where we need to spend and what we need to spend money on. He went against the unions (some of the most-entrenched in the nation) local newspapers (extremely liberal) and fought back against a tough state legislature that tried to stop him at every turn. He preached austerity and conservative fiscal policies in ways that were easily understood and argued the case that lower taxes spur job growth and increase revenues in a way no one has done since Reagan.

More importantly, he pared state government and returned the money to schools that had learned to reduce costs out of necessity. He now presides over a governing body that is in the position of being able to offer tax cuts and attract businesses back to the state. Christie gets the simple mantra that those with money and the will to take risks will lead us back to the America we once were before Obama alienated those who create jobs.

Instead, we have the architect of Romney Care and a man who took money from Freddie and Fannie as our standard bearers. How pathetic.

Offer No Quarter on Taxes

One month ago, Conservatives won a mandate and injected new blood into the dying body we call Congress. The American people said enough is enough; enough spending, enough entitlement programs rammed through without even reading the bill and enough of the arrogance that permeates Congress both sides (three if you include whatever side Denis Kucinich (D-Uranus) is from).

Here we stand with a large axe hanging over the head of the economy. In 19 days, every productive American will see their taxes rise to levels that will be unmanageable and the fragile economy can't sustain. I would take a $4,000 hit or more than $300 per month that I currently spend on clothes, food, beer and restaurants. I won't spend that and the stores I frequent would lose business from not just me but all the others like me who work hard and spend within the community (especially the liquor store).

The Obama plan is a sham; it's larded up with pork for the ethanol industry (an industry even Al Gore bailed on) and dozens of other idiotic handouts. Democrats are currently trying to savage it and Conservatives are starting to crow about the insanity of raising deficits when we should be cutting them.

Put it to an up or down vote in the next few days: one on whether or not to let the tax cuts lapse--including the estate tax--and in essence raise taxes on those who actually can save the budding recovery, one on the extension of unemployment insurance, one on ethanol subsidies and ane on all the other garbage thrown in. Make people put their name on the line and act as if they work for us and not the opposite.

We own the House and the Democrats who lost are squatting in it. Let's hit them upside the head and say hell no, we are not going back to the same old bullshit we saw last time the GOP held the reins. Keep up the phone calls and e-mails and let them know that we're paying close attention to how this is handled. If they start to buckle or waver, we push harder. If no deal is reached in which we get everything we want, we let the tax cuts lapse and tell the American people it was purely the fault of lame duck liberals who want to push one last steaming pile of deficit-laden bullshit onto our children. We'll re-instate them under better terms come January.

Crist is Almost as Tone Deaf as Obama

Charlie Crist has been pounded from the right by Marco Rubio who has entrenched himself as the conservative and his bonafides are rock solid. Crist got caught up in Obamania and was pictured with The One in a hug (right) while supporting his budget-busting legislation.

Crist is getting crushed in the primary battle and one would think he'd at least try to act somewhat conservative. You'd be wrong:

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that illegal immigrants should not count in the census, a position that would cost the state federal money and one that puts him at odds with Gov. Charlie Crist — his primary opponent — as well as the Republican-controlled legislature.

Rubio’s spokesman told the paper that his position was based on “rightful representation in Congress and ensuring that every voter has an equal voice.”

Today, Crist, trailing Rubio in recent polls, called the former state House speaker’s position “absurd.”

“Florida deserves to have her fair share. And I think making sure that we count every single Floridian is vitally important. That’s why I went to the school yesterday in North Miami,” Crist said.

Essentially what Crist is saying is "screw the rest of the country, let's count the illegals so we can get a bigger share of money forcefully taken from people in other states". That would be fraud anywhere else but not in the non-political world.

Crist is sucking up to Florida's immigrants who can vote but also to those who can't vote but will do so illegally. Again, fraud.

Does Crist not realize that it was the illegal alien issue that lost the presidency for John McCain. Bush also lost the support of his base--the only support he had at that point--because of this issue.

Rubio will rout Crist and win the seat sending a real conservative to the Senate and not another RINO. We already have far too many of them.

Idiocy Runs Rampant on the Left and Right

The hyperbole and rhetoric is flying like diarrhea from the mouths and keyboards on both sides of the political spectrum today.

First we have an elected representative going insane in front of our eyes:

“I would like to apologize,” he said. “I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven't voted sooner to end this holocaust in America.”

He invoked an event where 6,000,000 Jewish souls died with the ongoing battle for healthcare that will benefit no one but those in the country illegally. Sounds apt.

He was "apologizing" for this over the top statement where he accused us Republicans of wanting people to "die earlier", which spewed earlier:



Wake up Rep. Grayson, us GOP'ers don't want people to die earlier, we need the great unwashed to work in our sweatshops so it behooves us to keep them kicking a little longer. Oh, and Congressman, take your meds.

On the right we have the hyper-partisan Newsmax allowing a piece of filth written by some scrub calling for a coup against Obama by the military:

What happens if the generals Obama sent to win the Afghan war are told by this president (who now says, “I’m not interested in victory”) that they will be denied troops they must have to win? Do they follow orders they cannot carry out, consistent with their oath of duty? Do they resign en masse?

Or do they soldier on, hoping the 2010 congressional elections will reverse the situation? Do they dare gamble the national survival on such political whims?
Anyone who imagines that those thoughts are not weighing heavily on the intellect and conscience of America’s military leadership is lost in a fool’s fog.

Will the day come when patriotic general and flag officers sit down with the president, or with those who control him, and work out the national equivalent of a “family intervention,” with some form of limited, shared responsibility?

Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.

Dude? Did he just say that? What a fucking idiot. The dude was such a moron they pulled the piece. Nice editing Newsmax, that would be why I never link to them.

We suffered four years of Carter (and 29-years of mindless drivel ever since) and survived as a nation. No intelligent person would ever even conceive of a coup unless the president eschews the Constitution as happened in Honduras. If that happens, all bets are off. We're not even remotely near that point either.

The Internet has been an amazing tool for spreading thoughtful ideas and creative political thinking. Unfortunately, that didn't happen today.

Monday Night News and Notes

How y'all doin?

Here's what's goin on in this crazy old world.

-Shocka! States that abided by the time-tested ideals of fiscal conservatism are doing great while those that spent in the time-tested liberal fashion are cratering. The death of conservatism has been exaggerated.

-Sen. Arlen Specter (Turncoat-PA) is finding out that his decision to be politically expedient wasn't such a good idea.

-Things are not going so well in Afghanistan. I trust Michael Yon to give us the straight story more than anyone. I guess we'll start seeing massive protests in San Francisco any day now that the war monger Obama is letting our troops die.

-Big Brother lives.

-Decidedly unstudly stud gets his comeuppance. Not quite sure what they did with the superglue and probably don't want to find out.

-Libs freaking out over the Obama picture plastered around liberal bastion LA pictured at right.

Compassionate Conservatism In Action

It's not often you read of the good works of George W. Bush in the Inquirer. That said, it's probably a first that he was mentioned in a nice tone in the Arts and Entertainment section. The arts community has generally hated Bush for his politics, policies and the fact that it was a prerequisite to suffer from BDS to be accepted among ones peers in that chosen vocation.

Now that he's gone, we're starting to hear of the good he did in the world including his phenomenal effort to rid the African continent of HIV and, now, his support in releasing a rapper--John Forte--from federal prison:

His reemergence - which continues with shows tomorrow at World Cafe Live and Friday at the XPoNential Music Festival in Camden - came through the efforts of two unlikely champions: singer Carly Simon, who is Taylor's mother, and Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R., Utah).

But if Hatch, who has called Forté "a genius," and Simon, who says that working for the reduction of the musician's sentence "became my calling," were the midwives at Forté's rebirth, the delivery-room doctor was even more improbable.

In one of his final acts as president, George W. Bush on Nov. 24, 2008, commuted Forté's sentence. A little less than a month later, Forté walked out of the Federal Correctional Institution in Fort Dix a free man.

...For a good part of his life, he wasn't. He spent seven years and eight months "away" - first in a federal prison in Texas, then in Loretto, in western Pennsylvania, and finally in Fort Dix. He was moved there in 2004, thanks to Hatch, not only a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee but also a songwriter. Simon, a Democratic fund-raiser, says she turned to Hatch in frustration after getting little assistance from the other side of the aisle.

In a 2006 letter obtained by the Salt Lake Tribune, Hatch did not deny that Forté was guilty of a crime, but argued that the artist should be freed in part because "he was no risk to society, because he was not a drug-user. And frankly, he's a genius." Hatch, who could not be reached for comment for this story, obtained privileges for Forté to have a guitar, which he taught himself to play in prison. Forté has called Hatch a "superhero of a mentor to me."

Emphasis mine.

Note that no Democrat would aid Simon nor Hatch in getting this man released from prison. I suspect it was simply because they feared being called soft on drugs while ignoring the fact that our drug laws are draconian. Sen. Hatch and President Bush had no such qualms. They had the personal and political guts to see the right thing done and damn the consequences.

I suspect we'll see more stories like this in the future as the good Bush did was overshadowed in the venomous world of partisan politics and the media's constant barrage of ridiculous charges and downright hatred has finally subsided.

Exit question: If it had been Ted Kennedy or John Kerry championing the release of this man, would he be a household name now?

Ayn Rand, Friedrich von Hayek and Glenn Reynolds

Retired Inquirer book reviewer Frank Wilson takes a stab at explaining the resurgence of book sales for Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and Hayek's The Road to Serfdom. He gets the reasoning exactly wrong:

To attribute the surge in popularity of these books to "conservatives" seeking solace after a defeat at the polls is both tempting and easy. But it almost certainly has less to do with partisan politics than with fundamental principles.

While Glenn Reynolds, who is mentioned at the outset of the piece has had a great deal to do with the resurgence of Atlas Shrugged, he, nor any other person I've read has said it was because of "conservatives". Hell, Reynolds has a more libertarian streak then a conservative one. In my opinion, most essayists on the "right" tend to be more libertarian with a conservative tinge than outright conservative as historically described.

Some years after The Road to Serfdom, Hayek wrote an essay called "Why I Am Not a Conservative." In it, he describes "as liberal the position which I hold and which I believe differs as much from true conservatism as from socialism," and he proceeds to argue that "the liberal today must more positively oppose some of the basic conceptions which most conservatives share with the socialists." Of course, Hayek uses liberal in its classic sense, referring to someone whose aim is "to free the process of spontaneous growth from the obstacles and encumbrances that human folly has erected." (John Galt couldn't have put it better.)

Those encumbrances are the government and government policies and programs. We have seen more encumbrances in the last six-months put in our way than the fifty-years previous. Today's "liberal" is as far removed from classic sense as can be possible.

Moreover, what Hayek says about conservatives applies equally well to many who today call themselves progressives:

"Conservatives are inclined to use the powers of government to prevent change or to limit its rate. . . . They lack the faith in the spontaneous forces of adjustment. . . . The conservative feels safe and content only if he is assured that some higher wisdom watches and supervises change, only if he knows that some authority is charged with keeping the change 'orderly.' "

We on the right believe in reduced government and don't feel we need any authority to induce order. We want a president and a congress who enact legislation to deal with inherently governmental function including national security, a strong military, the progression of rights and liberty and after that, just get the hell out of the way.

Conservatives of today are not what they were even twenty five years ago. We are not against change and in fact champion it in many cases. We push for the freedom whereby businesses can thrive and create new and better products that make our lives easier. We wish for the meddling fingers of the government to be reduced to the lowest level possible. The idea that we fell safer with the thought of a "higher wisdom" is ludicrous and shows that Mr. Wilson's view of who and what the modern conservative is taken right out of The Nation and is so far from what the movement has become as to be inane. The modern Conservative is one who does not necessarily need anyone but himself and his wits to get ahead.

It is today's liberals who need a leader to keep thing "orderly" and by orderly they mean oppressive. They want the government controlling everything and that is not exclusive to Democrats. Republicans have strayed into that territory, most notably after taking over the Legislative branch and having total control.

In this view, neither today's "progressives" nor today's "conservatives" are liberal, which is to say committed, in Hayek's words, to the "set of ideals that has consistently opposed all arbitrary power."

Wilson opts to lump conservatives and "progressives" into one group when they are mutually exclusive ideologies. Conservatives of the libertarian bent tend to abhor government except for that government that is absolutely necessary to maintain civil order and national security. Modern Liberals loathe individual freedom and free thought, they want the government to tell us what to do.

Wilson is a liberal and one who tries to explain away the new-found success of these two books. He knows that an electorate that thinks like Hayek or Rand would be bad for the modern liberal movement and feels he has to quash any idea that these books are gaining in popularity because of the policies being thrust upon us on a daily basis. Hayek and Rand are the anti-liberals and in that respect make their ideas the enemies of current political hierarchy.

Monday Evening News & Notes

The Phillies avoided a sweep at the hands of the Red Sox while the Mets invent new and creative ways to lose then get whacked 15-0 yesterday by those Yankees. Overall a good weekend.

Here's what's happening:

-Here we are less than 200 days into The Greatest Administration evah and we hear Michelle Obama's name come up in discussion of a scandal. I'd say it was Hillaryesque but Hillary waited at least a few months. You can take the politician (or his wife) out of Chicago but you can't take the Chicago out of the politician (or his wife).

-Everything is bigger in Texas; including protests against Nacy Pelosi, evidently.

-Obama's destroyed the economy, set capitalism back decades, screwed up GM and Chrysler and for his latest trick wants to overhaul financial markets. What could go wrong?

-Hey, all it took was a president who turned hard to the left to make Americans remember that we are, essentially, a center-right country.

-Global cooling is making Gore look more like an idiot than ever before. A tough task, that.

Another Conservative Woman gets Trashed by Media

She was asked a question by a mutant, gay radical about same-sex marriage during a beauty contest and answered truthfully that marriage should be between a man and a woman. She lost because of that answer and has endured the wrath of the gay marriage gestapo in concert with their media toadies. The pageant organizers threw her under the bus as well.

The National Organization for Women has rallied to her defense with all the zeal and gusto they defended Sarah Palin...which is to say none.

Now, Miss Prejean is being slammed for pictures that may have been considered risque' in the fifties but are incredibly tame by today's standard. NBC says it's too blue to show when they are the network that has had far steamier live action on shows like ER and...er, the peacock is so bad I can't name another show on the network.

So here's the picture that the homosexual Nazi brigade is bandying about as proof that Prejean has no moral compass, isn't a Christian and whose opinion should be not only squashed but gutted, burned and the ashes scattered all over San Francisco:

Hot? Damn straight she is. Hot enough to make a gay man straight...er, except for that ingrate Perez Hilton. Immoral? Not even close. If she were a liberal this would be a resume enhancer. Hell, even as a conservative it's a resume enhancer.

From Hot Air's comments linked above:

When do the Janine Garafalo nude photo get released to try and destroy her….sorry I couldn’t finish I just threw up.

portlandon on May 5, 2009 at 4:13 PM

And on that note, I think I'll skip dinner.

Where Does the GOP Go From Here?

Let's all be honest about something here; the GOP is in shambles with very few bright spots. Let's also be very honest that we've put ourselves in this position.

The last eight years prior to January have put us where we are since that time. By giving lip-service to our core principles and then doing the exact opposite of them we've allowed our party to become one not of ideas but of expediency. Arlen Specter was more the typical Republican not the left-leaning fringe faction.

We allowed George W. Bush to spend and our elected legislators happily jumped aboard the pork barrel express sending earmarks to their districts for projects not needed and in some cases not even wanted. We became Robert Byrd--fiscally of course, not with the hoods and kleagle stuff in our past. We allowed lobbyists to dictate our course instead of core values and an underlying belief in what the Constitution means. We allowed Bush to create education legislation (and immigration) with Ted Kennedy and create the largest entitlement program in a generation in prescription drugs for seniors program. Fortunately we stopped his insanity on amnesty but that was one of the few and far between victories conservatives have to hold up.

So where does the party go now? Here's my take on the future of the party and how we can regain those votes lost and those people who felt betrayed:

Fiscal sanity:

We have to become what we once were; fiscal hawks. That means no earmarks of any kind from anyone. It will be tough, earmarks are how the Senators and Congressmen say to the locals that they care and are bringing jobs to the region. They build tangible things that they can stand in front of for a photo-op. Any legislator that proposes an earmark should be called out by the party establishment and be made to suffer for it. In turn, we should hold up every single earmark by the Dems and ridicule it incessantly.

Taxes:

Not one single yes vote on any bill that raises taxes. Let the Dems own the high tax issue. We did on the stimulus in the House and all but the most liberal held out in the Senate. If we stand firm and united, we actually may gain some trust of the public back. We've looked like morons screaming about spending while we were as bad in that regard under Bush over the last half-decade. We need to regain the moral high ground and can't do so if we vote to raise taxes. Taxes will surely have to be raised on everyone and Obama knows it. He may wine and dine some soft Republicans and invite them over to watch football on a Sunday but they simply need to go to the White House, have a beer, look Obama right in the eye and say no.

Gay Marriage:

It's a loser issue. We support the ideal of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". It doesn't say "except for homosexuals". We look like zealots who are beholden to the Christian cause and that is not who we are. We are a Judeo-Christian culture and the Founders of our nation were influenced by the church but they specifically struck down the creation of a national church or religion. Face it folks; you're born gay. Think to yourself, why would anyone choose to be gay? Why would anyone opt to live life as an outcast? Homosexuals have as much choice over being being gay as I did on being white and Tiger Woods did on being Cablinasian. we can continue to pursue our current course on this and it will be like a fifty-ton anchor around our collective necks. The American population is inundated with homosexuality whether it be movies or TV and people are not as judgemental toward homosexuality as they once were. We lost this particular cultural battle and it's time to let it go.


Abortion:

It's tic-tac-toe at this point; no one can win. If you are not set in your ways on this issue, you never will be. None of the arguments will sway anyone. We should still be vigilant on partial-term and late-term abortion but if we allow this to be a major pillar, we risk being in the wilderness for some time. Don't get me wrong, we need to remain anti-abortion and make it an issue come election time but we're not going to have another conservative on the Supreme Court anytime soon and we stand no chance of overturning anything until that happens. Once we regain power, it's back in play.

National Defense:

We will get hit again and it will be devastating. Obama has neutered our intelligence operations by releasing the "torture" docs and may well have lopped the legs off our agents in the field. The days of getting actionable intel are over in the short term and until we win back the trust of the CIA and other intel agencies, we will be in a precarious position. We've allowed the Dems to take the offensive in the battle on water boarding even though we gained intel that directly saved American lives. Dick Cheney is out their brawling and the rest of the GOP is wishing he'd go away. How about having Cheney's back and say loud and proud that no, we don't torture and we didn't in this case. We have to make the average citizen see that we did what was required and it was effective.

Military:

Obama has pledged more troops because he had to. He boxed himself in when he railed about losing Afghanistan because we focused on Iraq. We have to push Obama hard on this and once the body bags start increasing, we can't dive to the gutter and use their sacrifices for political gain. It unseemly, disgusting and exactly what the the Dems did to us. I'll never forgive them for that and won't ever forgive the GOP if we play that game as well. Reid said we've lost in Iraq, Murtha falsely accused Marines of murder. They were both wrong and we should hand those particular albatrosses around their necks come 2010. We have to continue to push Obama to give our fighting men and women exactly what they need to win.

The Middle East:

The Obama administration is all over the map on the region. The not fringe anymore left hates Israel and everything the nation stands for. We can't let Obama cave to them or we will have problems we never even dreamed of . An emboldened Syria will retake Lebanon while Islamo-fascist's will rise in Egypt and start a full-scale civil war. We have to be vigilant on supporting the Israeli's.

Iran:

Iran cannot have nuclear weapons. A nuclear Iran means a constant battle to keep the Straits of Hormuz open and the oil flowing. Add to that the confidence that will allow them to step-up operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and we will have a nightmare scenario.

In conclusion, we as a party must return to our core values: low taxes, reduced spending, strong national defense, protection of the 1st and 2nd Amendments and the spirit of hard work breeding success, not government handouts. We must allow the evangelicals to have a say but not the only say. We have to purge the soft fiscal conservatives and the hard-core social cons and elect fiscal conservatives who will stand up and say no to any new spending. We need to have House and Senate leaders with the guts and leadership abilities to keep the caucus in line. It's the only way we will ever come out of the wilderness.

Update: Via Glenn Reynolds, the public has veered right on guns and abortion. The guns numbers I expected, the abortion ones I did not.

The Battle for the Soul of Conservatism

In the midst of two consecutive electoral debacles, the Republican Party is surveying the damage, searching for the causes and trying to figure out what has gone wrong. As happens when any party is soundly beaten in consecutive cycles, the talks of irrelevance and party doctrine are questioned by those within and those without. Think of where the Democrats were in 2002.

Now we see the battle for Conservatism itself being waged within the GOP and the ultimate winner will decide if we become a strong party once again or wander aimlessly in the hinterlands as a powerless minority party that can only sit helplessly as massive spending programs and huge legislative attempts to change America culturally occur.

On one end, you have the old school conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh who preach fiscal conservatism, social conservatism and the power of conservatism in general. On the other you have beltway Republicans who want to take the GOP to the middle, spend foolishly, vote according to popular opinion and generally disregard conservative principles except when those principles are politically palatable.

The latter of these have eschewed the all the gains and tactics that gave rise to the Reagan revolution and the Contract With America. They sit idly by as Three senators join the most liberal president in a generation in passing a bill that will bankrupt us as a nation. These beltway conservatives insert earmark after earmark into bills while talking of fiscal responsibility out of the other side of their mouths. They voted for the prescription drugs for seniors bill without so much as raising their voices in response to it. And Reagan turned in his grave.

We have a contingent of supposed conservatives in D.C. who vote by what they think will deliver them the most donations and votes while spitting on what it was that allowed us to emerge as a political force unlike any other in the latter part of the 20th Century. They are weak and gutless and will never stand up for what is right and look this president in the eye while saying no.

Not just politicos are in this but beltway pundits as well and their efforts to change the party are having an effect. People like David Frum whose idea of conservatism is roughly that of Sen. Arlen Specter. Frum is the Neville Chamberlain of this debate pushing appeasement with an administration and a Congress that is looking to wipe us out once and for all. Frum is living in a 9/10 world where all the signs were there but no one put them together.

Limbaugh on the other hand sees the signs and has connected them. He is not a politician but is the heart of American conservatism. He is a missionary who preaches why our way is better and why it is the correct course for a nation founded on conservative principles. He hasn't wavered and he hasn't backed down. He knows exactly what we have to do but since he's a beltway outsider, he's laughed at by the RINO's who work within it. Still he preaches and points out what he sees as the radical changes being proposed for our nation.

Here's to hoping that Limbaugh can win this battles because a loss means a decade or more of floundering in the wilderness while a neo-European style of government runs roughshod over the country. If he loses, the America of 2019 will be a sad shadow of the America of 2009.

Rush Derangement Syndrome

The political left in this country is well-organized and is better than conservatives at staying on point as a generally cohesive unit. While conservatives have an annoying tendency to sell out core beliefs in the spirit of compromise, liberals home in on an adversarial person or position and focus all their energy in denigrating or demeaning that person or position. The latest target is Rush Limbaugh and this may indeed be a battle they thought they wanted but soon find out they really didn't.

When you have the president's Chief of Staff mentioning him, you know this is a concerted effort to drive a stake through his heart once and for all. They are demonizing him like we've not seen anyone demonized since...well, Sarah Palin or Joe the Plumber. That's the play book move for enemies of the left: marginalize them and hammer them repeatedly until they scream for submission or are forced out. It takes a strong man or one who doesn't give a damn anymore, like Blago, to survive the onslaught. Fortunately for us on the right, Rush is that man. Unfortunately for us on the right, we have a party full of politcal hacks who seek nothing more than to get an invite to the White House and a nice pat on the back from The First Black President (TM). We saw it with Specter and we saw it with new RNC head Michael Steele and Rep. Cantor. Instead of ripping him, they should be defending him for having the balls to say it like it is.

Limbaugh has been a thorn in their collective sides for decades and they seem to sense that this is their time to be gine with him. They're ramping up the Fairness Doctrine, issuing veiled threats to radio stations and pummeling him on a nightly basis on the networks, CNN and MSNBC. But in doing so, they may see a major backfire because what Rush says is not what they portray him as saying. He speaks to the average American unlike any conservative since Reagan and is unflinching in his ideals. He was among the first to call out President Bush when he offered up Harriet Miers, went astray on amnesty and joined with Ted Kennedy in signing the largest entitlement we've seen in a generation. That is why people listen in huge numbers.

Liberals have never listened to Rush save edited snippets here and there. He'll never win them over anyway. Yet, there will be people who here what Rush has to say on one of the many attack pieces on CNN and give him a shot. Once people listen, they generally stick with the show because the guy is the best political commentator this nation has. He doesn't take himself seriously and speaks like a regular guy you'd meet anywhere but with greater conviction. That, in a nutshell, explains why he's so well liked and why liberal talk radio has never prospered because libs in general have no principles and zero conviction.

The Battle Against the States

I wrote recently about the coming Battle over states rights versus the federal government. On issues ranging from gay marriage to abortion to decriminalization of marijuana, the battle will rage for the next several years.

Liberals and Democrats generally favor the idea of a strong central government that dictates what states can and can't do. Conservatives and Libertarians tend to favor states rights; allowing states to decide what is best for them as constituent needs and wishes are more easily noted at the local level. This was the intent of the framers of our Constitution.

Today, liberal blogger Matt Yglesias posits that states are the problem without making his points too clearly:

I was talking to a libertarian-minded fellow at the Kaufman Foundation conference I was attending on Friday, and he asked me something like why does all this big government stuff have to be done at the federal level? Couldn’t we leave it all up to the states? That way there’s be a kind of “policy competition”—states could try different things, people could leave policy regimes they didn’t like, and we could see what works:

The most obvious problem with this proposal is that in the areas where the case for government activism is the strongest, it just wouldn’t make sense to take action at the level of a small sub-unit of a large economically integrated country. Rhode Island can’t regulate air pollution since it can’t help air wafting in from neighboring states. And Kentucky can’t do macro stabilization policy—there’s too much economic leakage into the rest of the country.

Now, no one I've ever spoke to has ever advocated leaving it all up to the states with no federal government oversight. That is an extreme libertarian position (as are many positions of that ideology) and one that no self-respecting pundit would ever make. The generally accepted conservative position is that states were granted rights under the 10th Amendment (and to an extent the 14th Amendment) to act on behalf of their citizens and in the best interest of those citizens. The framers understood that a strong federal government could become a kleptocracy, a theocracy or something worse. States, they reasoned, could be held more accountable since those elected in states tend to be more representative of the community at large.

Yet Yglesias uses the position of a libertarian to make his equally inane point about air "wafting" over Rhode Island or his other point about Kentucky and economic stabilization.

Liberals fear states becoming more powerful; because they know that some of the precious laws they hold dear would be overturned quickly starting with abortion and moving on to gay marriage and welfare. Roe V. Wade was thrust on the states and gave them no recourse but to comply with a practice that many people feel is abhorrent. Given the opportunity to overturn Roe V. Wade at the state level would mean large swaths of the Midwest and South would be anti-abortion zones and organizations like Planned Parenthood would be ousted within months.

But probably the more profound problem here is that it doesn’t seem to work in practice. In the context of the normal political debate, I obviously come down on the big government side of the equation. But at the same time, I wouldn’t disagree with the observation that there are some elements of our economy that are badly over-regulated. It’s much more difficult to start or expand a business than it should be and this is one of the reasons why our economy has gotten so dominated by cookie-cutter chains that have enough scale to amass expertise and legal clout needed to navigate this thicket. There’s more occupational licensing than their needs to be. There’s too much regulation saying that buildings have to be short, or can only occupy so big a percentage of the lot, or have to have so many parking spaces. At the same time that I think the country’s overall policy dynamic is too tilted toward the automobile, the actual vehicle registration process is weirdly cumbersome, and the rules governing auto dealers are positively insane.

Does Yglesias really believe that the regulatory burden on small business and such would become less burdensome if it were passed to the federal government? We see how well the federal government did when doling out our tax dollars in TARP 1. Add to that the fact that we just passed a $1-trillion stimulus package that wasn't even read by those who voted on it. I'll ask Yglesias to try to get VA benefits or social security benefits and see if he still thinks that federal government could streamline the process better than the states.

He bemoans the fact that state and local government gets bogged down in the minutiae of zoning but they have a much clearer picture of what their residents want. To pass this on to the federal government would be madness. Suppose a suburban town is approached by Home Depot to build a new store.Imagine the federal government getting involved in the process. Towns would lose their identity and become beholden to the federal government and lobbyists. In other words, the system would be corrupted well more than it is currently.

Rather than the small scale of the units leading to better policy via competition, what seems to me to happen is that the lack of public attention paid to policymaking at the state, county, and municipal level leads to much more pure interest-group capture than you see on the federal level. Not that interest groups don’t have a lot of clout in federal politics. But the relatively competitive nature of elections and the relatively bright spotlight shown on national politics puts a check on these things. At the state level, bad policy really runs amok. So I wind up being skeptical that you could really improve much of anything even in those areas when I think the libertarian perspective is broadly correct by devolving more authority downward.

Of course the interest groups play a huge part in local deliberations of policy. That's the point; they are issues that affect the everyday lives of normal Americans. On issues of local concern, those interest groups don't include only businesses and local leaders but the citizens as well. I suppose that Yglesias hasn't been to too many town hall meetings where public policy is argued in real time among citizens and their elected officials. The US Congress and Senate never have to answer to their constituents except when they are running again. In between, their interaction generally is limited to a staffer reading an e-mail and not even telling the elected official what his constituents want or think. We saw this play shamefully with Sen. Specter voting for the stimulus when the majority or Pennsylvania residents opposed it.

States and municipalities should have more rights, not less. Yglesias and his ideological brethren would much rather have all power focused on DC where, regardless of who holds power--is slanted heavily to the left. Entitlements are the mother's milk of the Capitol and to take the power from the local yokels and put it into the hands of the DC elite is a dream they've been chasing for decades. The fact that it would actually reduce freedom and choice in our nation seems to be lost on our federal officials and it seems to be lost on Yglesias as well.

Sunday Morning News and Notes

Happy March. Only three weeks til spring springs and the crack of the bat is heard all over the place.

Here's what's new in the world:

More Hope and Change (TM) is coming. Obama has assigned a guy who was a lobbyist for the Saudi's, hates Israel and supports Hamas, blames the US for 9/11 and said Israeli tactics were akin to the Nazi's for the head of the National Intelligence Council. Just another swift move and broken promise by The One.

Speaking of broken promises, didn't Obama claim that no one who was a lobbyist would work for him? So much for that.

Radio icon Paul Harvey is dead at age 90. RIP Mr. Harvey.

The new green revolution Obama talks about should start with Congress. Perhaps a nuclear power plant right next to Pelosi's office would suffice.

Rush rallies the faithful at CPAC. He seems to be enjoying being in the minority as much as us conservative bloggers and knows that we have four years of daily fodder with BHO occupying the Oval Office, Pelosi as Speaker and Reid as the Majority Leader. Below is video number one of ten. You can view the rest at Hot Air:

Is Jindal the New Gipper?

Note how the Louisiana governor picks apart the porkulus bill piece by piece while simultaneously sounding like what the conservative movement has been hoping for since about 2004. He is reasoned and articulate while sounding highly informed and calm.

This dude will be a force come 2012:



Palin, Pawlenty, Sanford and Jindal; a nice start to ousting Obama.

Via Allah.

Update: Ah, the short memory of The One:

What I don’t want us to do, though, is to just get caught up in the same old stuff that inhibits us from acting effectively and in concert. There’s going to be ample time for campaigns down the road.

This from a man who started campaigning for the 2008 race when he spoke for Kerry in 2004.

Michael Steele Wins RNC Chair

Sweet. A little history of our own.

Stimulus Bill Passes 244-188

Republicans were unified:

The House of Representatives just approved the estimated $819 billion economic stimulus plan favored by President Obama. The vote was 244 in favor to 188 against.
All 178 Republican members voted against the plan, according to the chart that C-SPAN was updating.

The Senate is expected to vote on its version -- which is likely to cost more -- within days.

Now maybe the GOP will see that conservative principles would have kept them at least nearer in seats. Instead, they spent and spent and chowed down on earmarks. We're stuck with this piece of shit bill that will bankrupt us for a generation and most-likely won't work.

New Jersey will receive the following:

Highways and Bridges: $777.8 million

Mass Transit: $334 million

Wastewater Treatment and Sewers: $237.2 million

Heat Aid: $37.9 million

Schools Modernization: $419.7 million

Pell Grants: $502.8 million

Not nearly enough when compared to other east coast states. To put it in perspective, the NJ School Development Authority allotted $2.3-billion for school construction this year.

Congressional Republicans fought hard to excise any pork they could out of the bill but with no numbers they have no strength. Nancy Pelosi will crow and we'll have to watch her up on the podium with that botox face and shit-eating grin but we deserve it for straying away from Reaganism.

More later.