Who is to be congratulated for the elimination of Cain, Perry, Bachmann, and Huntsman?  The voters.  That’s right.  Sure, the candidates made some mistakes.  The media did everything possible to prejudice voters against them, and that was a crying shame.  But voters didn’t have to let the media or the contrived, somewhat artificial debate process make their decisions for them.

There is good news in all this.  First, the voters really are making the decision.  Second, the voters are starting to think for themselves.  It would have been nice for that to happen earlier, but there’s no time like the present.

Third, with the voters thinking for themselves, candidates who are focused on liberty issues are still on the ballot, and the party dialogue on those issues continues.  I know a lot of people don’t see it this way, but they’re wrong:  the most important thing the GOP can possibly do in 2012 is decide what it is and what it wants.  Self-identified “conservative” voters may be in a national majority according to the surveys, but it has been more than 20 years since we were all pulling together.

The bottom line is that the GOP is not agreed on what the problem is. We’re fighting that out right now – and it’s healthy, if annoying.  One faction says the problem is Obama; the other faction says it’s the way we now govern ourselves, which – no matter who is in charge – cannot avoid oppressing the people with regulation, debt, and crony-enrichment schemes at the people’s expense.  The latter faction is divided between those who see enough prospect for change with one of the candidates still in the race, and those who don’t.  Those who see even Gingrich and Santorum as too reflexively “big government” in their thinking are a growing voice.

The good news is that we are having the debate in a way that matters.  That is very good news.  Never underestimate the power of ideas.  They stick with people, even when it seems they haven’t, and they are the only thing that can motivate people to unite and make positive changes.

The mainstream media don’t depict it that way, of course.  They labor to depict the GOP primary season as a turkey shoot run by Keystone Kops.  But Americans have a choice as to whether they let the mainstream media distribute their opinions to them, like thematic gift baskets, and more and more Americans are choosing to just say no.

I wrote last year about Rick Perry as a candidate of the “old consensus” – my term for the modus vivendi adopted over the last 60 years by Democrats, who were increasingly taken over by progressive statists, and Republicans, who fought a rear-guard action to keep statism from getting too big and expensive.  Under the old consensus, Republicans were largely focused on the monetary and economic expense of statism, and the tacit agreement was that the right would accept as much statism as we could “afford.”  As long as we were growing economically – so this consensus went – we could afford a fairly heavy burden of statism.  Perry, I thought (and still do think), was on the Reagan end of the consensus rather than the Rockefeller end.

But what I see happening in the Republican primaries is an awakening of conservative voters to the disasters invited by the old consensus.  The loss of fiscal integrity and loss of liberty for America are products of the old consensus, and they have proceeded in lockstep: we are losing as much of the latter as we are of the former.  I believe 2012 is the year in which a critical mass of GOP voters has awoken to the reality that the old consensus is a destructive path and is in any case unsustainable.  Voting to continue down it on any basis is voting to remain on course for destruction.

I urge GOP voters not to be discouraged about this.  Ideas outlast everything else.  The idea of individual liberty and limited government cannot be killed.  America has not had a fundamental dispute over basic ideas for a very long time; we have become conditioned to the foggy stasis of bumper-sticker slogans and complacent, rarely-visited idea-sets.  It feels unsettled and strange to truly be debating the relationship of man and the state: to be breaking up those idea-sets and repudiating things supposedly bought into decades ago.  But a movement of ideas is a force of remarkable power, and one that no state power arrangement has ever ultimately withstood.  America’s burgeoning movement of ideas will not expire ignominiously.

The future of liberty on earth depends on what happens in America in the next decade.  If there is any nation on earth that can navigate peacefully back from the brink of statist implosion and loss of liberty, it is the United States. In 2012, GOP voters can rejoice in having alternatives, imperfect as they are, to a big-government statist candidate.  Voters can choose to affect the political process – and possibly the outcome in November – by casting their votes on principle.

Some words to live by as we go forward.  The president doesn’t make us, we make him.  The integrity and character of the people are paramount.  The only sure way to lose a battle is to stop fighting.  America has beaten the odds every time.  We will beat them again.

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

So, is Adelson’s money buying Newt’s support of Israel?

Not hardly. One of my readers did a little research and sent me a few helpful links. (Thanks!)

Look at this article from 1998 in the San Francisco Jewish Weekly, titled Resignation of Newt Gingrich means Israel is losing a friend. For those of you readers who can’t do difficult math, that article was written more than 13 years ago, which means Sheldon Adelson’s money played no part in Newt’s opinion on Israel. So far, the best the Forward can come up with is Adelson’s money contributed to Gingrich’s group in 2006. Whoops. That’s eight whole years after we read this:

A Jewish Democratic politico said of Gingrich’s pro-Israel credentials, “I don’t think Newt is acting. I’d like to say he’s full of it, but he isn’t. Yes, he was trying to out right-wing the right-wing Jews, but he’s a true believer. Livingston may say what AIPAC wants to hear, but it’s not in his kishkes. He’s not a true believer.”

Really? A Democrat called Gingrich a right-wing Israel supporter in 1998?

But wait. There’s more! In 1998, Gingrich also called Jerusalem “the united and eternal capital of Israel”

Oh, pshaw. There must be some way Adelson’s money influenced Gingrich’s opinion. Maybe he’s so rich, he has a secret time machine and he went back in time to convince Newt to support Israel?

Or maybe Newt’s been a supporter of Israel for decades. (Also, Newt is pretty damned close to getting the Yourish.com cherished Master of Juvenile Scorn™ designation.)

Speaker Newt Gingrich said today that the White House was trying to blackmail Israel by pushing it toward the negotiating table, but President Clinton said he was only trying to bring about fruitful talks on Mideast peace.

”It’s become the Clinton Administration and Arafat against Israel,” Mr. Gingrich said at a news conference. ”The Clinton Administration says: ‘Happy birthday. Let us blackmail you on behalf of Arafat.’ ”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The Forward itself discussed Gingrich’s ties to Israel in the 1990s (buried, of course, in page two of an article using the Gloom-and-Doom Machine profiling his ties to Adelson). On the first page, they date the Adelson-Gingrich relationship back to 2007. This, kiddies, is how you get away with saying that your article is objective because it mentioned the recent and more distant relationships. It is also what is known as “slanting.” But the most important takeaway here is just what I wrote the other day: The only reason the liberal media is jumping all over the Gingrich-Adelson relationship is because Adelson is a Jew who is supporting a conservative Republican, rather than the liberal media-slash-Jewish establishment’s approved causes–which would be liberal Democrats.

Haim Saban influencing Bill Clinton? Not a problem. Sheldon Adelson is contributing to Newt Gingrich’s campaign? OMG, he’s a conservative, somebody stop him!1!!

Your objective media, exposed.

Cross-posted.

Will Weatherford, Florida state representative and spokesman for the Romney campaign in Florida, confirmed this weekend that the Republican-controlled Florida legislature is about to approve a redistricting proposal that will make it much harder for Allen West to be reelected.  Legal Insurrection points out the obvious:

Weatherford tried to hide behind a need to comply with [state and] federal law, but that’s obviously a dodge since there could have been many ways to comply yet not sacrifice West.

To point out some more “obvious,” this is a Republican-controlled legislature.  Did the Republicans allow other GOP-held Congressional seats to be severely jeopardized by the new district lines?  Apparently, only one.  An analysis done for the Washington Post last week indicates that Allen West’s and Tom Rooney’s seats are the ones in the most danger.  Getting positive help from the redistricting are Republicans Dan Webster, Sandy Adams, Mario Diaz-Balart, and John Mica.

Redistricting isn’t as easy as it looks, of course.  But it is not believable that it is either a fully non-partisan process – when anyone is doing it – or that the Florida GOP leadership was neutral as to which seats were jeopardized by their plan.

One possibility is that Republican leaders thought West and Rooney were the most likely to achieve reelection in newly hostile districts.  They haven’t said that, so that’s pure speculation based on trying to put this in a positive light.

Meanwhile, who are Florida’s arguably most outspoken, conservative Republican Congressmen?  West and Rooney.

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

I admit to being entertained by the Gingrich candidacy.  I was intrigued by the notion that this Clinton-era throwback could somehow reinvent himself to the point of becoming the Great Conservative Hope that could vanquish the Obama Menace once and for all.  His grandiloquence and idearrhea are not congruent with a candidacy that did not, until recently, exceed single digits.  I thought that the end had come when his top staff defected to the Perry camp.  But Newt did what Newt does, namely, to hold fast to the belief that technology and mad debate skillz would eventually win the day.

And Newt was right.  He gained strength as Romney remained static and the also-rans faltered.  The Not-romneys dropped one by one, and Newt eventually went on to win the South Carolina primary, which brings us to where we are today.

The base seems to have largely forgiven the serial adulteries, his fondness for the individual mandate (which has brought Romney so much heat), and his flirtation with the cult of AGW.  None of that seemed to really bother the base, so long as he articulated a passionate case for conservatism.  I was put off the Bain attacks, because capitalism suffered collaterally, but I am just as guilty of being entertained by all the journo-punching (as would any conservative in search of a champion).  However, his statements at today’s Univision forum disqualify him, in my opinion, from further consideration among those of us who respect the Rule of Law.

Breaking the Republican boycott of Univision (at least, among Presidential candidates) was in bad form.  This boycott came about as a result of Univision’s attempts to coerce Senator Marco Rubio into an interview.  Gingrich was the first to announce that he’d break the line in order to sit down with Jorge Ramos.  What’s worse, he did so in order to attack Mitt Romney’s immigration positions.  In so doing, he smeared Romney as an “anti-immigrant”, which is what Univision and the Hispanic Left label anything that is not an unprotected, wide open border.

Such demagoguery is an insult to those of us that are of Hispanic origin and support fair immigration reform.  There are a great many of us who silently support immigration reform which is respectoful to those who paid the price and played by the rules.  We get smeared enough in the Hispanic media, without having to hear such pap fly from the mouth of someone who aspires to challenge our Demagogue-in-Chief.  Such language is acceptable if you are currying the favor of the Jorge Ramoses and Ruben Navarretes of the world, but is well beneath someone who aspires to the Presidency of the United States.  It is particularly troubling that Gingrich seems to readily reach for the language of the Left when attacking his primary opponents.

History will note that the end of Rick Perry’s campaign was neither his “oops” moment, nor his “third agency” faux pas.  Perry’s goose was cooked the minute he smeared opponents of the DREAM Act as “heartless”.  As far as I’m concerned, Heartless 2.0 is also the end of the Gingrich campaign.

A Spanish-language version of this post is available at El Tercer Riel (The Third Rail).

If the voters weren’t silly, they would understand that it has to be Mitt Romney, because, well, primary voters were silly and picked Christine “I am not a witch” O’Donnell over Mike Castle in Delaware, not to mention running with that goofy Sharron Angle in Nevada, and look how that turned out.  You can’t get California and you probably can’t get New York, if you’re the GOP nominee.  But you have a good shot at Pennsylvania and Ohio, Michigan and maybe even Illinois, if you’re Mitt Romney.  Newt Gingrich?  Forget it.  Gingrich can’t even win Georgia.

And the truth is, this analysis isn’t necessarily wrong.  If I had to make a bet, I’d bet that a Newt Gingrich nominated to run for the GOP in November would implode on the campaign trail.  He’d still make a better president than Obama, but his “sticking it to the media” shtick in the debates would lose its luster when he faced Obama.  He comes across as easily annoyed; the feistiness that resonates with voter sentiment in the primaries would weather time and tides poorly.  As between an irritable Gingrich and a cool, scripted Obama, I would predict without hesitation that the latter’s jokes during a debate would come off better.  All things being equal, that is.

As with the O’Donnell-Castle primary outcome in 2010, however, it’s not the voters who are silly.  They know that all things aren’t equal in 2012.  The voters who put Gingrich over the top yesterday believe that we can’t keep going down the same political path in the United States – and that that holds for Republicans at least as much as for Democrats, if not more.  Their perception is that the GOP leadership is invested in the current path of government: that it doesn’t want change; it is not committed to restoring liberty and limited government, but instead is comfortable with the growth of regulatory intrusiveness, and seeks merely to broker pragmatic accommodations to leftist activism as a sort of rear-guard action.

Considering that the GOP has been doing this for most of the last 80 years, the voters aren’t wrong.  They aren’t wrong about Mitt Romney: his record of enthusiastic accommodations to the left is a set of rusty, clanking weights tethered to the back of the Mitt-mobile.  Gingrich and Santorum both have some ‘splainin’ to do as well, but Gingrich has specifically repudiated some of his earlier faux pas (such as the snuggle-up with Nancy Pelosi on combating “global warming”).  He also speaks trenchantly on the issues that exercise the most voters:  federal debt, health care regulation, regulation in general, government intervention in the economy, illegal immigration.

It does matter to primary voters, moreover, that Gingrich “takes it to” the media by rhetorically denouncing the questions posed in the GOP debates.  Voters on the right perceive the one-sided political attitude of the media to be a significant problem for American politics.  And while I don’t get as excited as others do about Gingrich’s little rhetorical broadsides in the debates –responding with broadsides isn’t, per se, a component of leadership – this is another thing the voters aren’t wrong about.  Media bias is a problem, not only in politics but for our public life in general.  People believe a lot of things that aren’t so today because of the particular narratives favored by the major media.  The perception of public assent generated by the media’s formulations produces an environment for government taking actions that jeopardize our liberties.

Many voters are determined not to be ruled by federal executive agencies whose agendas are approved by MSNBC and the New York Times.  These voters are voting for the candidate they deem most likely to reverse America’s slide into precisely that method of government.  That they see such a candidate in Newt Gingrich speaks more loudly about the general state of the GOP than about anything else.  Voters are seeking to break the inertia and conventionalism of the Republican Party; this is, in fact, a power struggle, and one in which I would not bet against the voters.

The famous salvo from South Carolina in April 1861 precipitated a shooting war under old conditions that no longer prevail.  The Union had all the material advantage in that war, as it had the moral advantage in being determined to preserve the national union while ending slavery.

But today’s South is no longer under such a disadvantage.  A political salvo from the South is a different portent now.  Likewise, the Republican Party doesn’t hold a Union-like advantage over its members, nor is there any valid reason for our federal government to hold such an advantage over a law-abiding people.  Today’s “rebel” GOP voters in South Carolina aren’t the slave-regime old guard, they’re the abolitionists.  We need not be deceived that wanting to reverse the encroachments of the federal government, and defeat the plantation mentality in Washington, is evidence of irresponsibility or lawlessness.  The truth is closer to the opposite.

The people have one tool – the vote – by which to express the sentiment that things have to change.  In 2008, Mitt Romney didn’t look all that different from George W. Bush.  The Obama tenure has been a wake-up call that has put Romney in a new perspective: in 2012, he doesn’t look as different from Barack Obama as conservative voters would prefer.  Obama is less an outlier than the end-gamer of the same big-government principles embraced by both major parties over the past 80 years.  We have now seen with our own eyes where those principles lead, and the voters don’t want to go there.  It’s not the voters who need to wise up; it’s the Republican Party.

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

Vivian: So you don’t actually have a billion dollars, huh?

Edward:  No, I get some of it from banks, investors…

Vivian: And you don’t make anything and you don’t build anything.

Edward: No. No.

Vivian: So what do you do with the companies once you buy them?

Edward: I sell them.

Vivian: … You sell them.

Edward: Well, l… don’t sell the whole company; I break it up into pieces… and then I sell that off; it’s worth more than the whole.

Vivian: So it’s sort of like, um, stealing cars and selling ‘em for the parts, right?

Edward: [ Exhales ] Yeah, sort of. But legal.

Edward Lewis could have added:  “… and I love being able to FIRE PEOPLE!!”  Or so the soundbite-driven understanding of all this would have it.

You’d think Romney’s opponents would know that much of the base they’re trying to appeal to hates demagoguery against business.  When a business isn’t profitable, there are good reasons why it’s better to repackage and repurpose its assets for more profitable use.  Unprofitable businesses aren’t made profitable by political bailouts; they are made dependent and unsustainable.  Businesses like Bain Capital ensure that resources are being put to the most profitable, job-creating uses, given the environment of regulation and taxes that businesses have to operate in.  There’s nothing wrong with the existence of such companies; indeed, they are a positive factor in a dynamic business climate.

But then, Romney is tin-eared himself on some significant things.  He did, in fact, say that he likes to be able to fire people if they’re not performing.  That is a stupid, politically insensitive way to word a valid requirement of a healthy economy.  People sometimes have to be fired, but it’s suspicious for someone to “like” being able to do it.  There is nothing more gratifying than an employee who does well, and in particular one who improves over time, while there is nothing that makes the average boss feel as terrible as having to fire one who simply can’t seem to measure up.

Why couldn’t Romney have said instead that businesses need to be able to fire non-performing employees, even though it’s never any fun to do that?  Apparently because that’s not the way he sees it.  His phrase about liking to be able to fire people is the one that came naturally to him.  It doesn’t mean he’s a cold-hearted jerk who loves to give people bad news, but it is a personality problem for him in political leadership.  ‘80s-era pop psychologists would have said that he is very “objective-oriented”: he resonates to the idea of the goal and the achievement, and gives short shrift to the people.

Republicans do want a better climate for business, but the more abstract, data-focused perspective of a Bain Capital graduate is not necessarily what they are looking for.  I don’t actually want a president who imagines he can boost the bottom line of US companies.  I want one who understands that government policies affect people, largely through the constraints they put on business.  And I want him to respect the rights and dignity of individual people, neither trying to bribe them with goodies nor trying to herd them into programs that he sees as financially smart.  I’m not looking for a president with an opinion on whether a whole bunch of things he isn’t in charge of can be profitable.

Bringing up Bain as an issue has also turned up the fact that Bain profited from a deal in the early 1990s involving a steel company that received a $44 million federal bailout for its pension plan.  While it is demagoguery to equate this with Bain itself receiving a federal bailout, it is still a problem for Romney.  Companies like Bain have been operating in the environment of government incentives, regulations, and bailouts for quite a while now, and Romney’s record is one of being comfortable with that.  (He endorsed the TARP bailout in 2008.)

More and more of the people are not comfortable with it.  It is well and good that Romney wants the government to get off business’s back, but it’s not OK to remove only some constraints while leaving others, and continuing to bail the whole mess out.

Sadly, Romney’s opponents have wasted a superb opportunity to talk about what they think is the proper relationship between business and government.  They have simply jumped on the demagoguery bandwagon, which frankly is cheap and annoying.  If I were crafting talking points, I would address the “liking to fire people” comment graciously – something along the lines of “I’m sure this is what Governor Romney meant to say” – and focus more on Romney’s comfort with the extent to which government regulates business, profits from regulating business, and bails business out so it can keep regulating and profiting.

One last thought.  In contrast to the bloviation-fest precipitated by the Bain Eruption, consider the cool dispatch and intelligence with which the candidates knocked down the idiotic social-issue questions posed by Stephanopoulos and Sawyer in the debate on Saturday night.  The candidates were ready to talk about those issues – irrelevant as they were – with principled specifics.

On the matter of business and government, however, it’s been all big-government complacency on one side, and all mindless demagoguery on the other.  Not a hint of a principled argument about the free market and the appropriate role of government, from the perspective of either a man-and-the-state theory, or a regulation-vs.-the-market theory.

Nothing has made clear like the last 40 months that there is no longer an American consensus on these matters.  The Obama camp knows exactly where it stands.  But the GOP candidates aren’t internally motivated and prepared to make specific cases about it, as they are about social issues.  Yet that’s what the voters are waiting to hear.

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

McCaskill still blasted the GOP for including the provision in the bill, but said she’d be “gosh darn if I think it’s a good idea to raise taxes on people working as hard as they know how right now.” In other words, Republicans put Senate moderates like McCaskill and Ben Nelson over a barrel, and they’re going to have to give the GOP something in order to produce an extension of a payroll tax holiday that was a bad idea when it was first implemented and hasn’t done anything to boost the economy anyway, but now it will look like a tax hike if it goes away. The Senate, which hasn’t produced a budget on its own in almost 1000 days now, couldn’t have botched policy any worse than this. McCaskill’s basically looking for a way out.

This brings up a problem I’ve been trying to highlight here for the last month. When Republicans begin talking about tax hikes, extending tax cuts and the related effect of each on the economy, there is a big trap waiting which the Democrats would love to see us spring. Let’s examine the emphasized portion above. So there is currently a “tax holiday” in effect which has effectively lowered the tax rate being paid by workers across the country. What that means, by definition, is that it is the current tax rate. But it was only intended to be temporary and it produces a negative effect on the Social Security trust fund, right? So we should oppose extending it on that basis… right?

(We’ll pause here for a moment so everyone can nod their heads solemnly in agreement.)

Now let’s take a look at the famous “Bush tax cuts.” We all know the story there. Something has to be done to keep the Democrats in check or they’re going to let them expire, which will result in – and I’m using the same language you can find on any conservative site around the web here – a massive tax hike, particularly on the rich job creators.

See anything fishy yet?

Those tax cuts were also written into legislation as being “temporary” in nature because they were designed with an end date specified, unless they were extended. (Or “made permanent” which is a complete joke because nothing of that nature is permanent and the next Congress is never bound by the decisions of the last one.) And allowing such a “tax hike” to take place would be disastrous for the economy, right? Right? Because you can’t have the government sucking more money out of the economy. It hurts job creation and etc. etc. etc.

The tax code is constantly in flux. (Mostly because the tax code itself is a destructive disaster to begin with, but that’s a story for another day.) Any time the tax code today changes tomorrow, it’s either a tax hike or a tax cut. You can’t make it one or the other based on your whims without being subject to charges of hypocrisy. If you fight against keeping the current payroll tax holiday in place saying it “will look like a tax hike,” you’d best not have a history of saying that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire would be a tax hike. Otherwise you’ve load up the opposition with ammo.

And if lower tax rates enacted by a Republican “helped the economy,” then you’d best be ready with an awful lot of data to show the massive majority of middle class workers that lower taxes which put more money in their pockets “hasn’t done anything to boost the economy anyway.” Otherwise you’re only making the fondest dreams of Democratic strategists come true.

Now some of you will be quick like a bunny to jump to the barricades and say, “No, no! There’s a difference between the marginal tax rates and payroll tax deductions!” To a certain extent you may be correct in theory, but we’re not talking about reality here. We’re talking about politics and talking points and thirty second sound bites which are easily digested by the masses in headlines. Who do you think the target audience here is… the OMB? Any outcome which results in more money being withheld from workers’ paychecks tomorrow will carry the only lasting image which counts.

You really can’t have it both ways.

Sen. Isakson wrote about this in a recent op-ed.

On August 26, 2011, the NLRB decided to recklessly abandon this longstanding precedent. In its Specialty Healthcare decision, the NLRB decided that unions can now target a small group of employees doing the same job in the same location for organization purposes. For example, in one grocery store, the cashiers could form one “mini union,” the baggers could form another, the produce stockers could form yet another, and so on. This could potentially create several different unions within the same store location, making it easier for unions to gain access to employees and nearly impossible for employers to manage such fragmentation of the workforce.

Union forces are already up in arms over these proposals, as it would cut the legs out from under a scheme where as few as two or three cashiers in a single grocery store could wind up creating their own “micro-union” even if the store employed hundreds of cashiers across many locations.

It’s worth pointing out that it is certainly not unheard for more than one union to exist in a large workplace. One example which comes to mind is naval re-fitters working in and around the many shipyards in the nation. In those types of shops you’ll find the IBEW representing all of the electricians while the structural and plumbing guys might be in the pipefitters. But in each of these cases you’re talking about a majority of all of the workers engaged in the same type of work joining up.

The challenges which employers would face should be obvious if any three people in any occupation decided to declare themselves a union one day and demand negotiations. Assuming this comes to a vote in both chambers, it will be interesting to see how successful Congress can be in taming the power of the NLRB and other executive branch agencies. So far S. 1843 is heading into committee while H.R. 3094 has cleared the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, but has not yet been presented for a vote on the floor.

20111114KMC – Radio Podcast
20111114KMCVid – TV Podcast

*Find The Kevin McCullough Show on our newest affiliate of the month: WGCF-FM – Paducah, KY
(including the ciities of: Paducah, KY., Cape Girardeau, MO., Paris, TN., Carbondale, IL.)

ON THE KEVIN McCULLOUGH SHOW:

1. THE HEADLINE ITEMS:
Well, based on Saturday night’s debate–won by either Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, or Ron Paul depending on who you like, the polling has improved for the former speaker putting him ahead in at least one poll of both Mitt Romney and Herman Cain. Also many are crediting Rick Perry with the best idea from the debate, and showing that he’s the best sport of all the candidates. Ron Paul won in not getting that much time to filet himself. kmcradio@gmail.com

2. THE PRACTICAL DILEMMA:
So are we missing something when thinking and talking about the Penn State scandal. Several pro-family groups are making a big deal about the homosexual element to the sodomy performed on the victims in the matter. But wouldn’t it be just as insidious if it were done to girls as well? PLUS there are much bigger reasons being missed all together by those highlighting the link to homosexuality. Our culture isn’t merely on homosexual-overload, it’s on rampant-unimpeded-sex-in-your-face-all-the-time overload, as the Sasha-visits-the-kiddies issue highlights. Your replies: kmcradio@gmail.com.

3. THE GOD THOUGHT:
“As we seek first the kingdom of God, we will discover that through the good times and the bad, in days of pleasure and days of pain, through our laughter and through our tears, God is at work in us!” CONTINUE: “God Thought” on facebook!

Also able to be heard via a snappy smart phone listening app for the AFR Radio Network at that same time each night 8pm EST. Download Apple’s iTunes AFR’s app here. Android and other smart phones may download here.

“If President Obama and the Democrats repeat the mistake of the health insurance reform here in Massachusetts on a national level, they will threaten to wipe out the American economy within four years,” Cahill said in a press conference in his office.

…[T]he state’s health insurance law…Cahill said, “has nearly bankrupted the state.”

Cahill said the law is being sustained only with the help of federal aid, which he suggested that the Obama administration is funneling to Massachusetts to help the president make the case for a similar plan in Congress… “…I would argue that we’re being propped up so that the federal government and the Obama administration can drive it through” Congress.

Commonwealth Connector, the independent state agency established to help residents find the health insurance, has “totally failed,” to create competition and connect people with affordable insurance, Cahill said, pointing out that 68 percent of the residents it serves receive subsidized care.

“We haven’t done anything about driving down costs,” Cahill said. “We haven’t helped small business. We haven’t changed the way we pay for health care and the way we deliver it.”…

Look, if Romney somehow wins the nomination, I’ll support him without question against Barack Obama.

But we need to elect a conservative in 2012 who is 100% committed to the eradication of Obamacare. For if it isn’t wiped from the books, I fear this country may not survive.

Related: Oh, Super: Romney Consulted With Obama Mass Sterilization Expert and Science Czar John Holdren

*Catch the next episode at 8pm EST on radio stations across America or by way of podcast:
20111012KMC – Radio Podcast
20111012KMCVid – Video Podcast

*Find The Kevin McCullough Show on our newest affiliate of the month:
WGCF-FM – Paducah, KY
(including the ciities of: Paducah, KY., Cape Girardeau, MO., Paris, TN., Carbondale, IL.)

ON THE KEVIN McCULLOUGH SHOW:

1. THE HEADLINE ITEMS:
The “Occupy” movement steps forward the next level. In demonstrations on Tuesday going so far as to claim that violence was necessary for genuine economic help to come about. ALSO: The latest excuse for a debate was held by Bloomberg last night, yikes. The swords were out for Cain, we’ll hear from Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum. kmcradio@gmail.com

2. THE PRACTICAL DILEMMA:
A piece in the Atlanta predicts the “End of Men.” A female friend from Washington DC pointed this article out to me yesterday and today we begin a very important discussion of what the essence of this column would end up looking like. Sick of men? Think everybody else is? Your replies: kmcradio@gmail.com.

3. THE GOD THOUGHT:
“There is no second blessing or spiritual experience that can magically propel us to a state where we no longer struggle with sin. That won’t happen until we finally get to heaven. Between now and then we walk the hard road to glory.” CONTINUE: “God Thought” on facebook!

Also able to be heard via a snappy smart phone listening app for the AFR Radio Network at that same time each night 8pm EST. Download Apple’s iTunes AFR’s app here. Android and other smart phones may download here.

The long-simmering feud between Univision News and Senator Marco Rubio is about much, much more than a decades-ancient drug story.  Like the network’s telenovelas, this saga has many chapters and different plot twists.  However, there is only one overarching story line…one which we’ve seen before, and which conservatives should monitor very carefully.

Fox News reports that four GOP Presidential candidates (Huntsman, Perry, Bachmann, Romney) have announced they will boycott Univision’s debate, scheduled for January 29th.  This boycott stems from allegations that Univision attempted to extort an appearance from Senator Rubio on Al Punto (Univision’s Sunday equivalent to Meet The Press, et.al), in exchange for “softening or spiking” a story about a 1987 case involving his brother-in-law.  The Miami Herald broke the story on Monday.

This attempted coercion of Rubio and intimidation of his family is something I’d expect from The Mob, not from an allegedly respectable news organization.

On the night of July 5, Rubio received a call from his sister, Barbara Cicilia. She was distraught. A Univision reporter had called her about the arrest and incarceration of her husband, Orlando Cicilia, in the 1987 federal bust called “Operation Cobra.” Rubio was 16 at the time. Before Rubio was elected to his first legislative seat, in 2000, Cicilia was cleared for early release.

Mrs. Cicilia refused comment. Univision then sent a news truck to sit outside their West Miami home.

On July 7, Alex Burgos, Rubio’s communications director, and Rubio’s political advisor, Todd Harris, held a 45-minute conference call with a handful of top Univision editorial staffers, including Lee, the news chief who handled most of the discussions for Univision. Harris represented Rubio as Burgos took notes. Rubio was not on the call.

Toward the end of the conversation, Lee brought up Ramos’ show and suggested the drug-bust story could change — or not run at all, according to Harris and Burgos’ notes.

Said Harris: “You’re saying that if Marco does an interview with Ramos, that you will drop this investigation into his family and the story will never air?”

Lee, they say, responded with this statement: “While there are no guarantees, your understanding of the proposal is fair.”

Yet, Univision did not risk journalistic suicide just to get Rubio to step into the immigration cage with Jorge Ramos.  These acts can only be viewed within the context of the ongoing Estradization of Marco Rubio; that is, the overt or covert act of racial borking designed to suppress “minority” conservatives at any cost.

Let us never forget Miguel Estrada, whose nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals was torpedoed by Democrats terrified at the thought that he could become the first Hispanic nominee to the Supreme Court.  Estrada was (and is) not beholden to Hispanic grievance groups such as La Raza, MALDEF, or LatinoJustice PRLDEF.  Thus, he could not be counted as a reliable vote for affirmative action, amnesty, redistributive justice, or any of the other causes near and dear to these organizations…causes also near and dear to the Democratic Party.

Let us remember their smearing of Estrada as “extreme”, “outside of the mainstream”, and “radical”.  Let us never forget the effort, led by Chuck Schumer and Patrick Leahy, to deny an otherwise highly qualified candidate (as stated by current Justice Elena Kagan) an up-or-down vote.  Furthermore, let us remember their vicious smearing of Justice Clarence Thomas (which continues to this day) as proof of their intolerance of anyone who comes from a “minority” background and dissents from their worldview, or refuses to know his or her place within the liberal plantation.

There are those who make a handsome living by selling the twisted notion of submission to progressivism as proof of Hispanic authenticity (counter, in many cases, to traditional Hispanic values), and will do anything to keep that gravy train flowing.  Some of these identity merchants (the true sell-outs, if we are to really going to have this conversation) work in grievance organizations, some work in mainstream newsrooms, and others ply their trade on Capitol Hill.  They see Rubio as a threat, as proof positive that someone of Hispanic descent can win elected office without having to kiss La Raza’s ring.

The immigration grievance lobby, the institutional Left, and their media enablers shudder at the notion that a conservative Hispanic could rise to power without submitting to their ideology or otherwise owing them anything.  They are even more afraid of the example that this could set for Hispanic children, and of what this means to the long-term prospects of institutional Hispanic media here in the U.S.

This existential fear is the main driver behind efforts to smear Rubio as “inauthentic” or not sufficiently Hispanic.  It is the fear of irrelevance, and of Oblivion.

 A Spanish-language version of this post is available at El Tercer Riel (The Third Rail).

My colleague Karl writes today about the retirement from the GOP horse race of Tim Pawlenty, and the settling of the race into a “Romney vs. Not Romney” dynamic.  Pawlenty didn’t succeed in being crowned Not Romney in the Iowa straw poll yesterday, but how secure is the tiara on Michelle Bachmann’s head?  Is Rick Perry destined to step into a phone booth and turn into Not Romney?  What will the voters’ judgments be in the bellwether states of South Carolina and Florida?

The whole question is interesting, and begs in turn the question whether the 2012 campaign will be the clear-the-decks, all-bets-off political turning point that many are hoping for.  I think, to begin with, that a lot of people would find the “Not Romney” category an incomplete formulation.  It’s not so much “Not Romney” as “the category voters are looking for that Romney doesn’t fit into.”  Which, granted, has no future as a bumper sticker – but the point is that the thinking of non-Romney voters isn’t “anyone but Romney,” it’s “where’s the candidate who reflects what I want and believe in?”

Rick Perry may fill that bill for an electorally useful number of voters.  I don’t think he’ll have much trouble with Romney in South Carolina, and I’d call it even-Steven for the two candidates in Florida.  There are a lot of retired Northeasterners there to whom Romney appeals, but Perry can expect to do well with Florida’s Cuban-American Republicans, small business owners, and military.  Jeb Bush’s and Marco Rubio’s endorsements will carry weight.  I think I know which way Rubio will go, but I’m not sure what Bush will do.

I’m also not sure Florida will be a make-or-break state.  Assuming its primary is in January (as proposed), the early vote and the likelihood of a close split will mitigate the impact of a loss for either Romney or Perry.  Other states are likely to be more significant tests of the dynamic Karl outlines; the primary schedule has Missouri probably voting in early February, and the very interesting states of Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia voting in March, along with the Colorado precinct caucuses.  Those states may well be a better test of the electorate’s mood.  Will Romney win where we would expect him to?

The campaign may well come down to the convention vote, as it did in 1976.  It’s very possible Romney and Perry will both have good reason to consider themselves “still alive” when Pennsylvania votes in April, and Indiana and Ohio in May.  (I’m using the proposed primary schedule; not all dates may come off as currently envisioned by the states.)  If Bachmann stays in the race, racking up strong third-place finishes, the likelihood of the decision being delayed to the convention goes up.

It’s tempting to say that the question in 2012 is whether there will be a single Republican brand the voters will line up behind.  I think a more basic question is whether we have reached a tipping point in the popular sentiment that things not only have got to change, but that they already have.  We saw some evidence of that in the primary nod to Christine O’Donnell in Delaware last year, as well as in Florida’s revolt against the national GOP establishment in picking Marco Rubio over Charlie Crist, Nevada’s choice of Sharron Angle to face off against Harry Reid, etc.  There are multiple factors at work in the ongoing saga of Wisconsin, but one of them is the major shift in voter sentiment:  voters are willing to endure civil unrest, and the unhappiness of taxpayer-dependent constituencies, and continue to endorse the political leaders who are standing against those eruptions and doing what the voters asked them to do.

Have we reached the tipping point?  Are voters ready to buck conventional expectations and do things differently?  If they aren’t, and they hand the nomination to Romney, even a GOP win in 2012 will be taken as evidence that politics as usual is what people really want.  Opinions will differ on whether endorsing Rick Perry instead is a signal that voters seek real change.  It’s possible that he will function as a sort of operational pause for GOP voters and the republic:  conservative enough that he’ll get a lot of Bachmann and Palin supporters, but with a standard political resume of reassuring length and girth.  A Perry candidacy could well serve to postpone the kind of transformative reckoning the GOP had between 1976 and 1980.

The coming primary season is likely to be the most significant, informative one the GOP has had in decades.  We will know some things at the end of it that we don’t know today.  The biggest thing, I think, will be whether voters are still hoping to identify a standard-bearer for the “Reagan consensus,” or whether they see a need to rewrite the consensus.  If it’s the latter, my money is on an updated “Coolidge consensus”:  something starker, simpler, and purer than the Reagan consensus.

Are we ready for that consensus to emerge yet?  That is the question.  We’re closer than we were four years ago.  Because words matter, I don’t even want to hazard a guess about 2012.  But I do think there will be a sign one way or the other: whether Sarah Palin gets into the race, and what happens if she does.

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

Under a premium support system, the government would pay a percentage toward the insurance premium for each individual; there would likely be more help for low-income and sicker people. And enrollees could (not required) kick in more money to get better coverage.

Henry Aaron, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Robert Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute and former head of the Congressional Budget Office, in 1995 were among the first to explore alternatives to Medicare’s system of paying for individual services. And in 1998, President Bill Clinton’s National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare, chaired by then-Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., and then-Sen. John B. Breaux, D-La., developed a “premium support” idea, but it never became a formal recommendation. Breaux and then-Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., tried unsuccessfully to advance the plan as separate legislation.

Let’s take a look at her ‘confuzzled’ look as she was clearly caught off-guard by Congressman Michael Burgess (R-TX and a physician) as seen here at the July 13 subcommittee hearings (skip to .59 to 2:16):

The Weekly Standard also  reiterates and shreds her original comment:

This, of course, is as ludicrous as it is uncouth. First, the Ryan plan (which wouldn’t affect anyone who is not yet 55 years old) would not give seniors a voucher, as Sebelius well knows. Instead, the government would provide premium support to help seniors purchase private health insurance. Seniors would pick the insurance plan of their choice, and the government would funnel the premium support directly to the insurer — just as it does for Medicare Advantage, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, and the health care system for members of Congress.   

The Ryan plan would require insurers to cover any and all seniors as the condition of their being allowed to compete for seniors’ business. It would provide higher levels of premium support for less healthy and less wealthy seniors, and poor seniors would have every dollar of their care provided at taxpayer expense. The premium support would start at the average level of funding for traditional Medicare ($15,000 a year) and would rise with inflation from there. 

In truth, seniors would likely have better catastrophic coverage under Ryan’s plan than under traditional Medicare. There’s a reason why the vast majority of Medicare beneficiaries buy private Medigap coverage: There’s a whole lot of care that Medicare currently doesn’t cover. Despite that fact, Medicare is going bankrupt, and it desperately needs an infusion of private competition and choice to make it more efficient, cost effective, and affordable.

In short, seniors wouldn’t “die sooner” under Ryan’s plan. But Medicare would die sooner without it.

This is just more proof that Sebelius is nothing more than a partisan mouthpiece.  Her ideology gives away her game with her wanting to insert government into the playing field, and further evidenced the day before by none other than Paul Ryan who grills Sebelius on whether seniors should have control of their own health care and choices for their drug coverage.  Sebelius stumbles at the basic principle of allowing seniors to choose their own plan, but knows that choice is good for competition, and would gladly put the government at the top of that competitive scale.  Watch to the end.

Update: This is not the first time Sebelius has been clueless.

Going to into some random musings about the differences between Gov. Perry and former President Bush when he was Governor of the Lone Star State, the writers try to frame the debate as though:

1. Political rivalries in primary election years are new… (which they aren’t!)
2. Act as though this will make some sort of difference come general election season… (which it won’t!)

The paragraphs pit Gov. Perry, who was coaxed into Republicanism by none other than Karl Rove, against President Bush, who was a less than perfect conservative–by his own admission–during his time of public service.

The TIMES writers act as though this means somehow that Perry will be limited in his ability to garner large numbers of “Bush-like” republicans to be supportive of his cause.

The only problem is, this battle has already been fought and the grouchy Bush aides that don’t like Perry already got their clocks cleaned. (It’s called, “How Governor Perry got his third term, and became the longest serving Governor in the history of the state of Texas.)

Ask Senator Kay Baily Hutchison.

The Times’ piece gives passing reference that the rift between Perry/Bush is more likely a reality amongst slighted staff members of past campaigns… (which it is.) And as such has almost no impact on whether or not Bush and Perry could shake hands, enjoy a baseball game, or even go out and campaign together against Barack Obama.

The NYTimes authors of this piece are smoking sheen-style seven-gram-rocks if they think that President Bush will be anything other than enthusiastic and helpful should the race for 2012 come down to Perry v. Obama.

Also… they are helping Perry shore up credentials in places where Bush is/was less popular.

The fact that the “NYTimes” has made a big deal about “broken ties” between the two Texans will make folks like my recent sparring partner on FoxNews, Leslie Marshall think actually more highly of Perry.

The mischief that the NYTimes and the rest of the old media will be up to come 2012–none can truly measure, but if they wish it to be effective, they had best not be so delusional in picking the topics they think might actually work, because the way this Texan sees it, they just a big dose of help on the yet-to-be-declared-candidacy of Rick Perry.

And the former President and the Governor are most likely having a big giggle about it right now over some left over July 4th brisket.

“Yankees… and their funny ways…”

I’m Kevin McCullough and that’s how I “Binge Think”
And I also believe that he absolutely can not!

This isn’t really a surprise is it?

Well, maybe Harvard doing a study that came to some relevantly accurate conclusions is a surprise. But the outcome of the study itself?

And when you think about it, exactly why does it happen?

Very simply put. It’s all about the freedom, money, and reliance…

If what America stands for on “Independence Day” is being independent of other power’s oppression, tyranny, and control of the lives of the individual then July 4th is about the most Republican or Free Market holiday ever to come along.

Democrats on my show this morning took great exception to me implying that Democrats don’t wrap themselves in the flag (or show other forms of patriotism) because they don’t really like the ideals of the original concepts of America’s founders. If the progressives that are led by President Barack Obama are any indication, then what he sees America as is far different than a rebel republic throwing off dependency.

In Obama’s world – it’s more like a great big hug of uber-Government wet kisses. I detail much of this in my new book: “No He Can’t: How Barack Obama is dismantling Hope and Change.”

In Obama’s world – the best America can be, is apologized for, overseas, for months on end, as he began his term. (Is that patriotic?)

Is it a sign of “love for one’s country” to far more often than not see the worst in her?

July 4th parades – of which I’ve normally missed most of my 40-something years on this planet – are filled with red, white and blue, fire trucks, first responders (which here in the NYC can be very moving).

They also include that one moment, where a flat bed truck will be carrying several men (fewer each year) who are aged, some unable to stand who charged Normandy, survived Guadal Canal, or chased Nazi’s out of France.

When that truck appears all the pomp turns into cheers of respect, long loud seasons of applause, and usually with me nary a dry eye.

Then behind them are the Korean, Vietnam, Gulf War and War on Terror vets that fall in, usually walking behind the vehicle carrying the WWII’ers.

Never has any nation on earth spent more resources to bring freedom to more people than all of the rest of the world’s historic militaries combined.

If kids going to July 4th parades tend to come away from them resonating with more original ideas of the founders, if they walk away with a deeper appreciation of the sacrifice it has required to keep us free, and those ideas, and that appreciation are by extension more championed by Republicans, then the study got it dead on.

I wonder if the fact that this study was produced by Harvard would have any impact on the President’s willingness to lend any credence to it?

Heh… who am I kidding, whoops… almost forgot – time to go pick up my welfare check.

I’m Kevin McCullough and that’s how I “Binge Think”
Peddler of Compassion: “Cares Project 2011″
Author: No He Can’t

Is Ohio becoming the most pro-life state in the union?

According to this report it seems darned certain to be trying. Reuters reports that the ban goes into place once a fetal heartbeat is detectable.

Fetal heartbeats have been detected as early as five weeks into a pregnancy, though most are consistently screened for at six weeks. In essence this ban eliminates any partial birth abortions, and of course that Satanic practice that President Obama voted in favor of FOUR TIMES in his home state called “Born Alive Abortions.” (In essence infanticide caused by neglect. You know babies dying in soiled utility closets and all…)

Compare the pro-life environment (all stemming from Ohio’s legislature actions) as opposed to the Planned Parenthood issues of Indiana and it might just be the new mid-west capital and champion for the lives of unborn children.

Critics point out that the Ohio legislation doesn’t include exceptions for rape, incest, or life of the mother.

And why should they?

Is it the child’s fault that he/she was created out of such horrific circumstances?

The bottom line is always about the HUMANNESS of the child, which always seem to somehow go unnoticed. We’re pretty good at understanding or stressing the “rights of the mother.”

And that always leaves me scratching my head wondering, who does protect the most innocent and vulnerable amongst us?

And as a conservative it pains me to admit that in this instance, it appears to be, the government… in the state of Ohio at least.

I’m Kevin McCullough, and that’s how I “Binge Think.”

I think it would make no sense for her to run. I think her chances of winning the nomination are small. The chances of winning the general election are probably nil. I think, for the same reasons you articulated, 60 percent negatives. That’s almost impossible to overcome. And it isn’t as if that is forever. Hillary Clinton had very high negatives at many points in her career. But over time, they tend to soften.

…The problem with her, I think, is that she is not schooled. I don’t mean she didn’t go to the right schools… But when it comes to policies, she’s had two and a half years to school herself, and she hasn’t. And that’s a problem. You want a president who will be able to not have to learn on the job. We’ve already had that… …with President Obama and with others… It’s the lack of effort to school herself and the lack of insight to see that she needs it…

…I think if you’re going to master policy, especially world affairs, you’ve got to know history. As you said, you have to know how things evolved, and she is weak on that. It’s not as if she can’t learn. The fact is it doesn’t appear as if she wants to sort of sit down, spend some months schooling herself, as many people have done in preparing for the presidency. If you’re a governor of any state, you face a narrow range of issues, and you don’t have to deal with the world. It’s incumbent on you to actually learn about it.

So, just to recap, Sarah Palin can’t win against Barack Obama because she has high negatives, she hasn’t “school[ed] herself”, and she’s weak on history. But an incompetent community agitator with no executive experience, no private sector experience and who is an acolyte of Alinsky is qualified because he has a beautiful, cultured speaking voice.

George Will‘s substantive reasons that Sarah Palin can’t win in 2012:

The independent voters have made up their minds about her, and it is a negative judgment they’ve made… After the 2008 campaign she had two things she had to do: she had to go home to Alaska and study, and she had to govern Alaska well. Instead she quit halfway through her first term and shows up in the audience of ‘Dancing with the Stars’ and other distinctly non-presidential venues…

Just to recap: independent voters have a negative opinion of Palin. And the fact that Democrat operatives had filed 18 frivolous lawsuits — all later dismissed — against her (source: Associated Press), which were bankrupting her family, had nothing at all to do with it. That, plus appearing in the audience of Dancing with the Stars, disqualifies her.

Is this really what passes for informed commentary inside the Beltway?

Remember: Krauthammer worked for Walter-Freaking-Mondale in 1980. George Will endorsed Howard Baker in 1980. Both of these guys completely missed the Reagan revolution.

Krauthammer and Will are certainly smart dudes, but their political instincts appear to be for s***.

Palin can win. Bachmann can win. Cain can win. Ryan can win. Santorum can win. Obama is a sitting duck if confronted with a true, articulate Constitutional conservative.

He’s a walking, talking disaster as President. And everyone knows it.

By the way, I’ve been out of town for a while. How are those Stimulus, HAMP, Cash-for-Clunkers, Weatherization, Green Jobs, Obamacare, “Banking Reform”, drilling moratorium, First-Time Home-Buyer Credit, auto company takeovers and QE2 programs working out?

 
Hat tips: Mark Levin and Gateway Pundit.
Cross-posted at: Doug Ross @ Journal.

Mr. Obama said that the typical political proposal to rationalize Medicare’s gargantuan liabilities is that it is “just a matter of eliminating waste and abuse.” His own plan is to double down on the program’s price controls and central planning. All Medicare decisions will be turned over to and routed through an unelected commission created by ObamaCare—which will supposedly ferret out “unnecessary spending.” Is that the same as “waste and abuse”?

Fifteen members will serve on the Independent Payment Advisory Board, all appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. If per capita costs grow by more than GDP plus 0.5%, this board would get more power, including an automatic budget sequester to enforce its rulings. So 15 sages sitting in a room with the power of the purse will evidently find ways to control Medicare spending that no one has ever thought of before and that supposedly won’t harm seniors’ care, even as the largest cohort of the baby boom generation retires and starts to collect benefits.

I’d like to take you back in time to highlight some important pieces including this one I broke at Big Government where I warned this was being crafted by the Democrats:

The deliberate setup for the White House power grab is built into the each of the health care bills and, if they fail, little-known twin bills called “MedPAC Reform of 2009” are waiting in the wings.  The bills, S.B. 1110 and H.R. 2718, craftily amend the Social Security Act and transfer the Medicare guideline and rule setting processes, from the legislative branch to the executive branch.  These bills offer cover to one another in case one doesn’t pass the House or Senate, respectively.  Remember, Democrats need to gain executive branch authority by amending the Social Security Act over Medicare regulations and physician fee schedules to transform the health care system in a single-payer, socialized system.

More importantly, Medicare’s regulations and physician fee schedules are the keystone to developing payer systems and reimbursement models across the entire health care industry.  And where Medicare goes, insurers follow.

To further reinforce my analysis, former OMB director, Peter Orszag, stated:

The Medicare Commission, or Independent Payment Advisory Board, would have the power to override Congress if it rejected cuts to the entitlements programme for seniors, said Mr Orszag, a key architect of the reforms signed into law this week.

“This could well turn out to be as consequential for health policy as Federal Reserve policy was for monetary policy,” he said in an FT View from DC video interview. “The commission will put its proposals forward and if Congress does not act on them, or if it votes them down and the president then vetoes that bill, they will automatically take effect. Huge change.”

Enter H.R 452.  With 81 Republican and Democrat co-sponsors to date, this bill would repeal the IPAB and give Congress the oversight it had before the lawmakers stupidly inadvently stripped themselves.  And now they want it back.  Now, if you remember there was a story that circulated in December 2009 that bears more coverage when discussing repealing the IPAB. The catch is the language  found in the law where it stipulates:

“It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.”

Additionally, back in January 2010, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) explained that the Senate:

Would effectively be passing health-care legislation that includes a series of rules on how Congress would handle IMAB recommendations, and simultaneously will be keeping future lawmakers from changing it as they desire.
 
“We will be passing a new law,” he said, “and at the same time creating a Senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law.
 
“I’m not even sure that it’s constitutional, but if it is, it most certainly is a Senate rule (and not a law). I don’t see why the majority party wouldn’t put this in every bill. If you like your law, you most certainly would want it to have force to – for — future Senates,” DeMint added.
 
“(T)his goes to the fundamental purpose of Senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the minority — or of future congresses.”
 
The subsection that cannot be repealed or changed contains a number of other stipulations on how Congress will handle the IMAB recommendations, even setting deadlines for specific committees to consider them, which DeMint said were also new rules. “These provisions not only amend certain rules, they waive certain rules and create entirely new rules out of whole cloth,” DeMint alleged.

The CNS article goes on to document an exchange between DeMint and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and is a must read; Brian Darling of Heritage also provides terrific analysis.

The money question is:  Will the Democrats enforce this section with regards to H.R. 452 or will they let this come to the floor for a vote?  Because while the whole argument went down and the Republicans warned, the Democrats basically said–hey, forget about it.

• 1/7/2011: Boehner Doubles Down On Promise To Cut $100 Billion: “Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) yesterday doubled down on $100 billion in cuts. ‘No ifs, ands or buts about it,’ he said.”

• 2/20/2011: House Approves $61 Billion Spending Cuts, Raising Risk of Federal Shutdown: “Senate Democrats already have said they won’t accept the cuts in the $1.2 trillion spending bill, and Obama’s budget office has threatened a presidential veto. ”

• 3/2/2011: Boehner: Compromise Will Trim GOP’s $61 Billion Budget Cuts: “Responding to a question Tuesday about whether he foresees the House ultimately budging from the $61 billion figure, the Ohio Republican did not say that the chamber would hold firm when the Senate returns their proposal, which will likely include less than a $61 billion reduction in spending levels.”

• 3/10/2011: Tea Party pressures Boehner in budget battle: “Complaints by Tea Party Republicans have already forced Boehner to almost double the amount of spending cuts proposed this year from $32 billion.”

• 4/4/2011: Boehner says $33 billion in cuts is not enough: “I’ve made clear that their $33 billion is not enough and many of the cuts that the White House and Senate Democrats are talking about are full of smoke and mirrors. That’s unacceptable,” the Speaker said.

• 4/7/2011: Interviewed on ABC News, Speaker Boehner vows not to shut down the government over a 2011 “continuing resolution” budget impasse: “I’ve said that 1,000 times since the first of the year. I do not want to shut the government down. I think that is irresponsible.” [Ed: As an aside, the government has been shut down numerous times in recent years including a 21-day impasse during the Clinton administration.]

• 4/12/2011: Boehner touts fact that ”Budget Agreement Eliminates Funding for Obama Czars’ as a reason to support the continuing resolution budget deal.

• 4/14/2011: Boehner: I’m standing by the $38 billion number: Boehner stands by the $38 billion in cuts, saying that this was really “$78.5 billion less than what the president wanted to spend… [and that he was] very disappointed in [Obama’s] speech yesterday,”

• 4/15/2011: CBO Says Spending Cuts Aren’t As Advertised: “The Congressional Budget Office reports that the $38 billion in cuts to the budget for the current fiscal year will actually reduce this year’s deficit by only about $352 million.”

• 4/16/2011: Boehner’s office is not surprised Obama found a way to circumvent Congress, according to a staffer. A spokesman for Boehner said that the Speaker was not surprised that Obama has chosen to ignore the budget rider eliminating funding for the “Czars”.

In other words, Boehner held the trump card — a partial shutdown of the government — in his hands and threw it away. Without leverage, he was unable to live up to anything resembling his promises. Promises that the American people support and demand.

As Paul Ryan put it after witnessing the president’s hyper-partisan campaign speech on Wednesday, “the gauntlet has been thrown down” by Obama. He’s gone all in. The big entitlement programs and the American economic system itself are headed for collapse. That’s not what I say. That’s what Peter Orszag, Obama’s former economic adviser, says: ‘If policymakers will not act before we have a fiscal crisis at the federal level, a fiscal crisis we will ultimately have.’

We need a new Speaker of the House. Someone who understands that we’re up against true sixties radicals. These are people who want to see the whole society burn down. Because that’s where we’re headed without a major course correction.

We need a fighter and a competent negotiator. Boehner has proven that he ain’t it.

How does Speaker of the House Allen West sound?

Related: “Obama: Yeah, I know Democrats Agreed to the 2011 Spending Deal, But the Speaker’s an Idiot for Believing We’d Abide By It”

 

A hundred and twenty years ago, the greatest of all our Presidents delivered his second State of the Union message in this Chamber. “We cannot escape history,” Abraham Lincoln warned. “We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves.” The “trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest [last] generation.”

Well, that President and that Congress did not fail the American people. Together they weathered the storm and preserved the Union. Let it be said of us that we, too, did not fail; that we, too, worked together to bring America through difficult times.

Let us so conduct ourselves that two centuries from now, another Congress and another President, meeting in this Chamber as we are meeting, will speak of us with pride, saying that we met the test and preserved for them in their day the sacred flame of liberty—this last, best hope of man on Earth.
God bless you, and thank you.

words to ponder in the days to come.

Not so fast.  The post-election tea party has now evolved into the watchdogs of the state and federal politicians that they gave victories to.  The tea party now expects this new breed of politicians to adhere to their campaign promises (yes, I know) as well as tackle the real problems and actually do something about them.  Actions indeed speak louder than words, and in this case they directly affect our nation’s fiscal future–among other things.

Watch.  And listen.  H/T Caleb Howe

“They cannot agree with themselves,” said Hoyer. He called for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to distance himself from Tea Party conservatives and forge a compromise between centrist Republicans and Democrats.

Hoyer said Boehner should abandon the additional cuts conservatives muscled into the bill introduced by GOP leaders that would have cut $35 billion in spending this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. After an uproar from conservatives, GOP leaders rallied around a bill that would cut spending by $61 billion. 

Of course he would say that.

This is not 1995 though and the game has changed, and frankly so have the rules.  The differences between 1995 and now is the fact that President Clinton used his veto power coupled with spot-on messaging:

On November 13, 1995, President Clinton vetoed a continuing resolution that would have kept the government running amid a budget impasse. The result was a partial shutdown. A few days later, he signed another continuing resolution providing funds for the government until mid-December. After that measure expired, he vetoed three appropriations bills, and another partial shutdown ensued. This one lasted until early January 1996.

Yes, Clinton called the GOP’s bluff and triggered a government shut down.  The blame supposedly fell at the Republican’s feet.  However, the GOP remained the majority party in the 1998 elections only losing five seats in the House, largely due to the fact that the GOP-led Congress passed popular legislation approval ratings remained consistent.  Furthermore, President Obama is signing the CRs–he has no option–as the Democrats control the Senate.  He couldn’t possibly risk the blame to lie with his party.

The Democrat’s political strategy, setup, and sting on the Republicans is as directed at the tea party as it is to fragmenting and alienating the GOP leadership with the freshmen members.  This attempt to weaken Boehner as a leader and cause voters to become disenfranchised with the GOP sets up the 2012 election.  

The GOP must remember that every time a Republican has the fortitude to stand up and call out the Democrats and the left, the people are behind them.  They crave someone with that leadership quality and fearlessness.  And this is why there is no front-runner in the GOP race to the White House.

Speaker Boehner must lead and unify the Republicans, stay on message, and obey the will of the American people.  If he doesn’t, the GOP will suffer serious consequences and the mantra of “not only conservative, but Republican” will vanish–setting up third party races in 2012, GOP incumbent losses, and Democrat wins.  However, if Boehner stands firm there will be no way the MSM machine will be able to beat back the sentiments and will of the American people for the results will be self-evident.

Crossposted at TMR

An anti-tax advocate, Mr. Braman began the petition drive soon after Mr. Alvarez proposed raising property taxes for 40 percent of Miami-Dade homeowners last summer to plug a large budget deficit, a result of plunging property values. The Miami-Dade County Commission approved the budget. At the same time, unionized county employees whose wages had been frozen were due for a raise under a prior agreement and to have some of their benefits reinstated.

But the criticism reached beyond agreements with unions and property tax increases. The once-popular mayor, who was first elected in 2004, gave hefty raises to top aides in 2009, at the height of the recession, and also used a government car allowance to help pay for a BMW.

This anti-tax sentiment is echoed by this report:

On Tuesday, Cuban-Americans will decide the fate of two Cuban-American Miami-Dade County politicians. Once, being Cuban American was good enough for Cuban-Americans to come out and vote for a candidate. That is no longer true.

As early voting took place, it appears that Alvarez and Miami-Dade Commissioner Natacha Seijas will be ousted:

As of Friday, nearly 55 thousand people had already cast their ballots at the polls; more than 67 thousand voted by absentee ballot.

A recent Miami Herald-CBS4-Univision 23 public opinion poll showed that Alvarez and Seijas will likely be turned out of office.

When a politician such as Alvarez reaches into the taxpayers’ pockets to “fix” the budget, can recall be expected as the new normal and will it apply to both parties who dare betray the people?

Update:  The largest polling precinct in Miami Beach is closed to voters.  Reports cite schedule conflicts:

But tell that to voters who went to cast their ballots at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden and found the city’s largest polling place was closed because clients in town for the Cruise show at the Miami Beach Convention Center had booked the garden for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Howard Srebnick, a Miami Beach resident and prominent criminal defense lawyer, said the Botanical Garden at 2000 Convention Center Dr. was shut down “without notice.”

Complying with the records request from the House Energy and Commerce Committee “would constitute a vast and expensive undertaking” and could “implicate longstanding executive branch confidentiality interests,” White House lawyer Robert Bauer wrote the committee. Translation: Nice try.

Before the Democrats rammed through the Obamacare bill (and don’t think for one little ol’ minute that our narcissistic President doesn’t love that branding), Obama and WH officials met with several high-profile insurance executives as the WaPo lists:

The list included George Halvorson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Health Plans; Scott Serota, president and CEO of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association; Kenneth Kies, a Washington lobbyist representing Blue Cross/Blue Shield, among other clients; Billy Tauzin, then head of PhRMA, the drug industry lobby; Richard Umbdenstock, chief of the American Hospital Association; and numerous others.

The most concerning is George Halvorson as he was the only executive to meet with Obama.  And here is why:

“There really are two Americas when it comes to health care — the fully insured, primarily white America and the disproportionately uninsured minority America,” Halvorson wrote. “More than half of the total uninsured people in this country are minority. That fact alone should make the need to cover everyone in America a pure ethical imperative. This issue is not about economics — it is about equality. Universal coverage should be the next major civil rights issue for this country to face.

Halvorson also wrote an article in 2007 equating health reform to the “unfinished business of the Civil Rights agenda.” Halvorson discusses the disparities between the races and health care coverage and states:

If we considered no other issue than racial and ethnic disparities, this nation’s leadership — like the leadership of a number of states — should be moving this country down the path to an American form of universal coverage as quickly as possible. There is no more vital or meaningful way for us to honor and extend the great legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Again, Halvorson was also the only insurance executive to meet with Obama at that time.  Why?  Is it because Obama wants a single-payer system and sees himself as finishing the Civil Rights Movement, and Halvorson has the same viewpoint and the most to gain via Kaiser Permanente?  But, hey, there’s nothing to see here, right?  Or, is it that those meetings were, as Halvorson stated:

“The real discussion this time, behind those closed doors, is about changing the way care is delivered. Not about the cost.” 

Now, that is confusing.  According to former WH Budget Director, Peter Orszag, I thought that we were on an unsustainable path, so how could costs not come up in these meetings?  So, if we now know that those meetings were about how our healthcare is to be delivered, wouldn’t that be cause enough for alarm?  Some questions that pop into my mind are: how are those changes going to be implemented, what type of practitioner has direct access to patients, who has the ability to refer to specialists, who orders advanced tests/images, who makes the medical decisions, what protocols are being set/followed and who sets them, and do patients have access to all available treatment options.

Additionally, the Washington Times article cites that the Clinton and Bush administrations thwarted such calls:

President George W. Bush’s administration beat back efforts to reveal the dealings between Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force and industry. President Bill Clinton’s administration successfully resisted demands for records of its failed push to remake the health care system, which was overseen by then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

However, unlike the previous scenarios, this is now the law of the land, American taxpayers will be footing the entire bill, and will potentially ultimately have their healthcare decisions placed in the government’s control.  Doesn’t that give us the right to that information trumping the “implicate longstanding executive branch confidentiality interests” excuse.  And since when does this administration give a hoot about costs, nullifying the argument that the compliance with the records request “would constitute a vast and expensive undertaking.”

To quote NRO’s Jim Geraghty, did the Obama administration just administer the Cee-Lo Green option on Americans?

Typo correction: I’ve corrected the WaPo citation as it should have been Washington Times.

Hintz touches on so many topics in his 3-minute rant–from transparency, public debate, having to read a piddly 144-page bill, to the 35,000 people outside clammoring to have their voices heard.

Really?

Where was he when the more than one million Americans gathered at the Capitol and were ignored by the Democrats?  Was Hintz outraged when Republicans said they needed time to read the 2,000+ page Obamacare bill?  Where was his outrage when Harry Reid slipped in his manager’s amendment replacing the entire Obamacare bill and then voted on it?  Was he outraged when Nancy Pelosi met with Obama and other Democrat leaders behind closed doors locking out Republicans during the so-called ‘conference’?  Was he outraged when debate was cut off on Obamacare by the Democrats in Congress?  I could go on and on (and wrote extensively about it) as this type “professionalism” was on display for two years with Pelosi and Reid at the helm.

But, at least Hintz gets why the Democrats are in the minority…and in Wisconsin.

For the record, this video was extremely difficult to find as it has continually been scrubbed by the compliant lefty media.

Senate Rule 23
   Senate Rule 23. Committee not to be absent. Members of a committee, except a conference committee, may not be absent by reason of their appointment during the sitting of the senate, without special leave.
[am. 2001 S.Res. 2] emphasis mine

I’m a literal type of gal, and “may not” means you absolutely, positively cannot be absent–without taking special leave (maybe they could get a doctor’s note).  Here are the past and future committee schedules for February and March 2011.

Will tone-deaf, taxpayer-betraying Democrats Tim Carpenter, Spencer Coggs, Tomothy Cullen, Jon Erpenbach, Dave Hansen, Jim Holperin, Robert Jauch, Chris Larson, Julie Lassa, Mark Miller, Fred Risser, Lena Taylor, Kathleen Vinehout, and Robert Wirch abide by the Senate rules that they adopted in January 2011.  Or will they continue to hold their positions in contempt and be cowards?

Will the Wisconsin Republicans hold the Democrat fleebaggers to the Wisconsin Constitution and flex their majority authority…kinda like the Democrats in the US House did with Rep. Joe Wilson?

These fleebagging Democrats not only took an oath to uphold the Wisconsin Constitution, but also the United States Constitution and could, if they really had serious moxie, enforce what is stated in both Constitutions:

Article IV, §7 (of WI document)
   Organization of legislature; quorum; compulsory attendance. Section 7. Each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members; and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business, but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may compel the attendance of absent members in such manner and under such penalties as each house may provide. (emphasis mine)

It would be a great day for Wisconsin taxpayers if that “may compel” became a “did compel,” because as I have stated before “working families” is code for “union families” and what have the Democrats done for private-sector families, except regulate and tax their businesses it into oblivion.

Yes, indeed, elections have consequences.  And the GOP is only getting started; it’s only been two months.

The Republican National Committee raised $5.7 million in January, and new Chairman Reince Priebus said Sunday that $3.5 million of the total came in after his election Jan. 14.

“We owe a lot of our success to major donors who helped us reach 180 percent of our monthly major donor goal, and we were able to accomplish that in the last two weeks of January,” Priebus said in a statement. “I am thankful for the outpouring of support I’ve seen over the past month, from both long-time and first-time donors, but we have a lot of work to do.”

Priebus has been working to restore confidence among major donors and dig out from under the debt created during the 2010 election cycle. The RNC had $21.4 million in debt and only $2.1 million on hand by the end of the month, according to disclosure forms filed Sunday to the Federal Election Commission.

Yes, the total numbers on the balance sheet still look bad, but they’re a whole lot better than they were at New Years, and they’re heading in the correct direction. But what of the new chairman? Why isn’t he in the news? Why isn’t he making the rounds of every political hack with a camera? Is the man invisible?

Yes. Well… very nearly. And if you think that’s a bad thing, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Priebus is doing precisely what an RNC chair is supposed to be doing. He’s mending fences, bringing the big dollar donors back to the fold, raising money and quietly organizing his forces for the next cycle.

The media is left with little to chew on. Even Jon Stewart of The Daily Show has only managed to do one segment on him since he took office, and that was just to complain that they had nothing to make fun of except his name. (A joke which even Stewart admitted had worn thin after one session.)

An ideal RNC chair is one who you rarely hear of, with most of the country barely remembering his name, who does precisely what Priebus is doing. Is he “in hiding?” If you choose to think of it that way, fine. But it’s a damn fine job of hiding and working efficiently. I think this guy gets it.

Now you can yell at Jazz for being a stupid, wrong-headed RINO even faster than by leaving a comment. Follow him on Twitter! @JazzShaw

Cuomo announces plan for independent redistricting

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo introduced legislation Thursday to establish an independent redistricting commission to overhaul how congressional and state legislative districts lines are drawn in New York.

Independent redistricting has been the top reform urged by good-government groups for decades because New York leaders have drawn districts that are advantageous for the parties in power, limiting competitive elections.

But Cuomo is vowing to make good on a campaign pledge last year to change the system and install an independent body to oversee the reshaping of district lines this year in advance of the 2012 elections.

Yes, I heard him say that on the campaign trail too, but honestly, none of us actually thought he would do it.

I spent most of the last year grappling with the results of the Empire State’s obscenely gerrymandered districting scheme. The one where our race took place looks like something out of a sketch done by M.C. Escher on a bad brown acid trip. The rest of the state isn’t much better, with both the congressional and state legislative districts carved up in impossible ways to give Democrats every chance of holding on to as much power as possible.

If a truly independent board is put in place, as has been previously suggested, and they actually do draw up regularly shaped, axis-contiguous districts based solely on population distribution, the upstate region could suddenly become a lot more competitive than it has been for the last two decades.

This comes on the heels of his previous stances in getting tougher on not only spending, but on the public sector unions. Once the current drama in Wisconsin finishes playing out, let’s see if he and Governor Christie decide to adopt a few new pages for their playbooks.

It didn’t take long for the loons at ThinkRegress to begin attacking the memory of the 20th century’s greatest president. The culmination of their effort — ‘10 Things Conservatives Don’t Want You To Know About Ronald Reagan‘ — is a list of Reagan’s policies that conservatives supposedly want to hide from the general public.

Reagan was not the man conservatives claim he was. This image of Reagan as a conservative superhero is myth, created to untie the various factions of the right behind a common leader. In reality, Reagan was no conservative ideologue or flawless commander-in-chief. Reagan regularly strayed from conservative dogma — he raised taxes eleven times as president while tripling the deficit — and he often ended up on the wrong side of history, like when he vetoed an Anti-Apartheid bill.

ThinkProgress’ “top 10 things conservatives rarely mention when talking about President Reagan” are as follows:

“ 1. Reagan was a serial tax raiser” – Reagan suffered from overwhelming Democrat majorities in Congress when he took office. While he desperately wanted to strip away huge swaths of government (including eliminating the then newly created Department of Education), he had no choice but to compromise with the Democrats who controlled the budgetary purse-strings. When Reagan left office, the top marginal tax rate was 28% (today’s it’s 35% and under Bill Clinton it was nearly 40%).

“2. Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit by enacting a major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off precipitously” – Another flat-out lie. Before his 25 percent across-the-board cut in individual income-tax rates went into effect, government receipts from individual income taxes trickled in at $244.1 billion. The year Reagan left office, they totaled $445.7 billion — an 82 percent jump. As for the deficits, Democrats outspent every one of the nine budgets Reagan proposed but one. Further, Democrats refused to make corresponding cuts in wasteful domestic programs to offset the defense appropriations Reagan needed to combat the Soviet Union after the Carter administration’s foreign policy disasters (e.g., Iran, Afghanistan, et. al.).

“3. Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts” – Before the full tax-relief package was passed — against the wishes of many Democrats, by the way — the jobless rate hit 9.6 percent. But as the cuts rippled through the economy, unemployment dropped every year after 1983, reaching a low of 5.3 percent in 1989. And tax cuts benefited minorities, too. The jobless rate among blacks plunged from 19.5 percent in 1983 to 11.4 percent in 1989.

“4. Reagan grew the size of the federal government tremendously” – this again omits the role of Congressional Democrats who controlled the purse-strings and refused to axe the programs and agencies that Reagan requested. In fact, the media portrayed Reagan as “heartless” and depicted him as “laughable and malevolent” for his attempts to strip away the federal bureaucracy. But the only way the Democrat Congress would accept a defense buildup and tax cuts was for Reagan to agree to their domestic spending agenda. In fact, the budget deficits of the 1980s made the surpluses in the 1990s possible; the balanced budget was aided by surging tax revenues from a healthy, low-tax economy and immense defense savings made possible by the fall of the Soviet Union.

“5. Reagan did little to fight a woman’s right to chose [sic]” – Reagan was adamant about ending the practice of ‘abortion on demand’ and proposed that legislation be drafted to do so (you can hear Reagan’s 1983 address on this subject); but he “had little success in gaining its acceptance by Congress.”

“ 6. Reagan was a “bellicose peacenik.”” – this is sheer revisionist idiocy; Reagan believed, first and foremost, in peace through strength. He gave dozens of speeches on this topic, rebuilt the U.S. military after Carter had stripped it bare, and created the impetus for the oft-derided SDI (“Star Wars”) program that has since become an essential part of U.S. national security strategy. His famous slogans on this topic were “peace through strength” and “trust but verify”.

“ 7. Reagan gave amnesty to 3 million undocumented immigrants” – The Democrat leadership in Congress promised to enact strict enforcement measures as a trade for a one-time amnesty deal. In an effort to control the border, Reagan went along with the deal. At the time (1986), the measures were marketed by Democrats as as being able to stop illegal immigration. Ted Kennedy himself sold the enforcement clauses of the law as strong enough to ensure that only a one-time amnesty would be needed. But, as is their standard practice, Democrats lied about sealing the border.

Reagan himself said, “This country has lost control of its borders. And no country can sustain that kind of position.”

“ 8. Reagan illegally funneled weapons to Iran” -Democrats launched a six-year, $40 million investigation of Reagan in a politically inspired witch-hunt. Reagan was, in fact, found guilty of absolutely nothing. Furthermore, indictments were intentionally handed down mere days before the 1992 election that pitted George H. W. Bush against Bill Clinton — presumably to levy the maximum amount of political damage on the GOP candidate. Near the end of the investigations, The Baltimore Sun reported that a “federal trial judge in Washington dismissed Oliver North’s conviction” and that “[c]riticism of Mr. Walsh’s prosecution and of the law that authorized it will become more intense [because the] public has gotten precious little from his [at the time] $30 million, four-year effort”.

“9. Reagan vetoed a comprehensive anti-Apartheid act” – Reagan vehemently opposed apartheid (“Apartheid is morally wrong and politically unacceptable [... the] United States cannot maintain cordial relations with [such] a government“) but he did not support the approach advocated by Congress. He issued an executive order restricting trade with the Pretoria government and virtually ended inter-bank dealings. But he believed that Congress’ unilateral sanctions would harm blacks most of all and eradicate all of the leverage he wanted to bring to bear on South Africa. He wanted a timetable for the elimination of apartheid laws, the release of all political prisoners (especially Nelson Mandela) and a removal of the ban on black political movements. He felt he could not negotiate with the South African government if he had nothing to trade. His 1986 speech — “Ending Apartheid in South Africa” — comprehensively described his plans and approach.

“ 10. Reagan helped create the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden” – Gee, next they’ll be complaining that we had to side with the Soviets to defeat the Nazis. This sort of leftist lunacy simply rewrites history. We needed to sabotage the Soviets’ efforts in Afghanistan to prevent a dramatic power-shift in the Middle East. Blaming Reagan for the Taliban and Bin Laden is like blaming Henry Ford for the problem of too many scrap tires.

The speaker, along with Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., on Wednesday plans to introduce legislation to revive a controversial program that provides private-school vouchers for kids of low-income parents in Washington, D.C. Boehner has long been a supporter of that program, which started to wind down in 2009, but is devoting some serious political capital to the cause this week.

[snip]

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, as it is known, was launched in 2004 as the first federally funded program providing K-12 education grants. Though supporters say it gives poor students an alternative to the city’s underperforming public school system, teachers unions and other opponents say it draws sorely needed money away from the public system. 

Lawmakers opposed to the program succeeded in eliminating it after Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. — who could not be reached for comment Tuesday — attached an amendment to a 2009 spending bill. President Obama stepped in and agreed to allow students currently enrolled to graduate. But the program is no longer accepting new applicants.

To recap, the Omnibus appropriations act of 2009 defunded (roll call vote here) the successful program–effectively eliminating any opportunity for poor DC schoolchildren to escape the horrid DC public schools.  The Democrats, namely Dick Durbin, claimed that the program funding would take away from the money the DC public schools needed.

Speaker Boehner and Senator Lieberman put out this video statement:

This move to reinstate this program is a bold one for Boehner–especially when calls for spending decreases are deafening and we are broke (H/T Allah for the video).   However, when the Obama administration spent more than all previous administrations in his first 19 months in office, it’s hard to say that this wasn’t a deliberate cut on the part of the Democrats–especially after 3 months in office.

Furthermore, this is going to be a tricky issue for Obama and the Democrats–one that will further define the Democrats as bought-off, public-sector union hacks and self-serving politicians who continually oppress and exploit others for their own political gain.  Some of you may think, yeah, those Republicans, but I will remind you–it was the Republicans who originally started the DC scholarship program and the Democrats (and a few of the usual RINOs) who filibustered it.  Kinda like the 1964 Civil Rights Act–Democrats filibustered that one, too.  Look it up.

Does anyone see a pattern here?

In the mean time, Ken Buck lost by a tiny margin in Colorado; Nevada’s Sharron Angle lost by a similar narrow vote total, Dino Rossi was edged by Patty Murray in Washington, 27,000 votes swung the election against Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and and Joe Miller is hanging by a thread in Alaska.

In Alaska, the final results may not be known for some time, but the NRSC’s final ads actually ended up helping Lisa Murkowski in her write-in campaign against GOP nominee Joe Miller. Instead of attacking Murkowski — the candidate who most threatened the party’s nominee — the NRSC instead took aim at Democrat Scott McAdams, who had no chance of winning. Any support they drove from McAdams was far more likely to go to Murkowski than to Miller — meaning the NRSC effort probably did more harm than good for Miller’s campaign.

In other words, the NRSC’s idiocy — combined with outrageous remarks by Karl Rove on national television — likely doomed four or five true conservative candidates to extinction.

In the post-election debrief, the Nixonian RINO contingent of Whimsy Graham, John Cornyn and the rest of the NRSC’s ludicrous cadre of losers blamed… staunch conservative Jim DeMint, who had funded a handful of Tea Party-backed Senatorial winners like Pat Toomey (PA), Marco Rubio (FL), Rand Paul (KY), Mike Lee (UT) and Ron Johnson (WI).

Oh, but that $8 million spent on Fiorina’s campaign didn’t hurt at all — right, boys?

I know one thing: that $3 million spent in the final weeks on those five campaigns could have swung four or five seats to the GOP. But the idiots at the NRSC are selfish, insular Beltway Republicans who are wedded to the status quo.

News flash, boys: we just stamped expiration dates on your foreheads.

Lessons learned

Give directly to conservative candidates — and don’t send even a dime to the NRSC or any of Karl Rove’s pathetic groups (e.g., “American Crossroads” — or, as I like to call it, “American Double-Crossers”).

You can and should support the PACs of true conservatives like Jim DeMint, such as The Senate Conservatives Fund.

As for you, Whimsy Graham — I can’t wait until 2014. I will come to South Carolina, I will do whatever it takes to help defeat you in the primary.

Erick must have blocked out DC’s distinguished Mayor Marion Berry.

But his point — that the GOP’s effort is mostly “dreck” — is valid. Washington’s so freaking broken that the usual platitudes and rhetoric can’t and won’t suffice.

21 pages? How about starting with two words: THE CONSTITUTION?

To be sure, the Constitution is paid lip service in the GOP’s pledge. And a few (unfortunately, too few) stats are powerful. For example: did you know that there are 2,050 federal assistance programs?

And consider this sentence, notwithstanding the “sic”:

Despite having the largest Democratic majority since 1993, the current Congress marked the first time in the history [sic] that not a single spending bill was considered under an ‘open’ amendment process.

But there’s also plenty of fluff, with anecdotes and quotes and lengthy paragraphs that morph into meaningless mush.

Consider the summary of the GOP pledge:

• We will fight to ensure transparency and accountability in Congress and throughout government. [Platitude]
• We will continue to fight the growth of government and oppose new stimulus spending that only puts our nation further in debt. [Platitude]
• We will fight efforts to fund the costly new health care law. [Feh]
• We will fight to increase access to domestic energy sources and oppose attempts to impose a national “cap and trade” energy tax. [Okay, barely]
• We will fight for the rights of workers and oppose “card check” schemes that put union bosses before individuals’ right to a secret ballot. [Okay, barely]
• We will fight efforts to use a national crisis for political gain. [I have no idea what this means]

Reps. Boehner, Cantor, Ryan and other members of the GOP: you could have come to me for the half-page pledge. It would read as follows:

The GOP Pledge to America
We pledge that every action we take will be gauged by the answer to a single question: Does it show fidelity to the Constitution, our highest law?

With that as our guide, we solemnly pledge the following as our first actions:

• We will repeal the Democrat health care bill and, if vetoed by the President, will de-fund every aspect of that bill until such time as the American people have input into a sensible health care reform process.
• We will slash the size of the federal government bureaucracies (Commerce, Education, Energy, the EPA, Labor, etc.) by 20% in 2011 with a goal of reducing each by 50% over the next three years, thereby saving hundreds of billions of dollars.
• We will secure the border with physical fencing suitable to repel drug smugglers, human smugglers, and terrorists, while encouraging legal immigration and enforcement of the law.
• We will confront the entitlement crisis — Social Security and Medicare — by preserving benefits for those who depend upon them and moving to privatized options for younger workers. Anything less condemns future generations to mountains of debt and economic catastrophe.
• We will strengthen our armed forces, space and missile defense programs to retain our unparalleled superpower status.
• We will begin the process of paying down our debts, spending within our means every year.
• We will ban public sector unions, which exist solely to wage war against the taxpayers who fund their operations.

Put simply: we intend to adhere to a strict interpretation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Faith, Family, and the Founding. That is our creed.

And for your support and with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

It really is just that simple.

We are fighting to prevent the destruction of the American way — and the remedy is simple. It’s been right in front of our faces the whole time.

Somewhere, James Madison and John Adams are looking down on us with expectant gleams in their eyes.

 
Cross-posted at: Doug Ross @ Journal.

O’Donnell (in rhetoric, anyway) is more staunchly anti-earmark, anti-TARP, anti-Obamacare, and anti-cap-and-trade, all of which she stresses more than her Norman Maileresque views on self-abuse. At every campaign stop she emphasizes being “anti-establishment,” reverent of the Founders, and in tune with Tea Party nation.

Welch illustrates his point with visual reference to a memorable (but not necessarily family-friendly) cinematic encounter between Judge Reinhold and Phoebe Cates, which brings us to the topic at hand . . . err, so to speak.

Noted paragon of moral virtue Rachel Maddow got all snarky about the Delaware Senate nominee’s Bible-based critique of onanism:

Professor William Jacobson accused Maddow of “sexualizing” O’Donnell, but what struck me was that the MSNBC hostess felt it sufficient merely to play the 1996 video and then grin sarcastically, as if:

• No intelligent viewer could possibly consider O’Donnell’s exegesis of Matthew 5:27-28 as a serious argument; and
• This implied criticism of O’Donnell’s view did not require any counter-argument on Maddow’s part.

In other words, those who advocate chastity are presumed to be ridiculous, while their critics — who may or may not be degenerate atheists — need never explain or defend their own perspective on appropriate sexual conduct. I had some jocular fun with this, suggesting that Maddow should do an hour-long MSNBC special about masturbation which “would draw much higher ratings than anything Chris Matthews might say about his Obama-inspired leg thrills.” As with O’Donnell’s views on evolution, many liberals have slid into the self-congratulatory assumption that, because opposing opinions have been excluded from elite circles, those opinions are indefensible. No smart person they know takes the Bible seriously, ergo, only morons accept the Bible as authoritative. And in the context of O’Donnell’s slippery-slope arguments about coed facilities on university campuses, it struck me how successful liberals have been in marginalizing advocates of Judeo-Christian tradition:

Sneering contempt for old-fashioned virtue is a very dangerous thing. It is remarkable how far gone our popular culture is in this regard. All sophisticated people are now supposed to scoff at the notion that young people can refrain from premarital intercourse, much less be “masters of their domain,” as the Seinfeld show once phrased it. 
So casual is our cultural assumption that “everybody’s doing it” that we are shocked when anyone dares suggest we shouldn’t do it. The only acceptable morality is now amorality — an agnostic indifference to virtue — and our society has become strikingly intolerant toward those who publicly dissent from the New Sexual Orthodoxy.

You can read the whole thing, or perhaps you would like to consider how hypocritical liberals are to accuse Christine O’Donnell of being a conspiracy theorist. I think they’re talking about The Other O’Donnell:

“I do believe that it’s the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel. . . . Miraculously, the first time in history, steel was melted by fire. It is physically impossible.”
– Rosie O’Donnell, 2007

You can’t accuse liberals of not having standards. They’ve got exactly two: One for them, and one for everybody else.

[Bob Inglis] cited a claim made famous by Palin that the Democratic health care bill would create “death panels” to decide whether elderly or sick people should get care.

“There were no death panels in the bill … and to encourage that kind of fear is just the lowest form of political leadership. It’s not leadership. It’s demagoguery,” said Inglis…

“I think we have a lot of leaders that are following those (television and talk radio) personalities and not leading,” he said. “What it takes to lead is to say, ‘You know, that’s just not right.’”

As it happens that’s exactly what South Carolina voters said to Inglis when they voted more than 2-1 against him last month. Instead of praising them as leaders, though, he whipped out the race cards and whipped them around like he was dealing the world’s fastest poker hand.

Inglis said he was shocked during the health care votes as he watched protesters jeering Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who was beaten as a leading civil rights activist in the 1960s.

Inglis said he was too far away during the jeering incident to hear whether the protesters shouted racial epithets, as Lewis and other black lawmakers have claimed. But Inglis said the behavior was threatening and abusive.

“I caught him at the door and said, ‘John, I guess you’ve been here before,’” Inglis said.

Inglis, 50, who calls himself a Jack Kemp disciple because he has emphasized outreach to minorities as the late Republican congressman did, thinks racism is a part of the vitriol directed at President Barack Obama.

“I love the South. I’m a Southerner. But I can feel it,” he said.

I am about sick to death of these whiny Republicans who, when ejected from office like a tomato from a catapult by voters who have had enough of their spend-happy ways, turn around and cry like a bunch of babies with soggy diapers. Like those soggy-diapered babies (and doesn’t “Soggy-Diaper Republican” have a nice ring to it?), Inglis wants everyone to cater to his whims. In his world, he gets to tell us how it’s going to be and we meekly sit back and take it. That worldview has no place at all in the Republican Party. Heck, it doesn’t have a place in America.

If Inglis really thought that “death panels” was an extreme characterization of what lay inside Obamacare, he could have fought it vigorously in the arena of ideas. He didn’t because he was too busy pushing for his very own bill that, like Obamacare, would have forced you to buy health insurance whether you wanted to or not. Inglis claimed to be “shocked” by the anger that faced at town halls but he conveniently left out the part where he stoked the anger by accusing people who disagree with him as Glenn Beck-watching drones incapable of thinking for themselves.

We’re better off being rid of Bob Inglis and his petty, sniveling sense of entitlement. Maybe he can have a little lie-down in a pastel-colored, daisy-printed room to settle his jangled nerves.

(Read this post and more from Jimmie at his blog The Sundries Shack or listen to his weekly political and pop-culture podcast, The Delivery)

She’s even more impressive in person than she is on paper (or web). She was one of several women, including Liz Cheney whom I also adore, who spoke at that event, each as impressive as the next.  All smart as whips, charismatic, charming, quick, impassioned, energetic and with a fighting spirit embodying my personal motto: “Walk softly. But carry a big lipstick.”

The left hates that phrase and they have ridiculed me for it on more than one occasion. You see, they don’t get it. It’s not surprising, really, as we’ve all known for some time that while the left trots out the For The Women ™ meme constantly, they are anything but.  The same way that self-avowed modern day feminists are anything but feminist. In fact, they are diametrically opposed to feminism, by it’s very definition, because their entire agenda is actually harmful to women. This is why I now call them Femogynists and I’m taking the term feminist back.

True feminists are women like Sarah Palin and Nikki Haley. They are the new faces of feminism. That has a great built-in bonus, too — they are far easier on the eyes and exhibit none of that irksome hysterical screeching like the already irrelevant and soon to be extinct femogynists. They, and women like them, are coming to the forefront now.

We’ve had it, you see. We are angry. We are tired of femogynists claiming that they speak for us. We are tired of being sneered at as gender traitors for not toeing the faux feminist line and by daring to be pro-life. We are tired of the attempts to diminish Motherhood. We are tired of women being painted as perpetual victims by the left, in need of Big Daddy Government to save us.

We are tired of working so hard to raise our families and having the government take more and more away. We are angry at being treated like  children who aren’t capable of running their own lives, even down to what foods we eat. We are angry that our children’s futures are being squandered and we are fearful that they will never know the country we knew and love. We are angry that we are losing our freedom. That old phrase “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?” Say hello to the scorned (I’m waving at you right now)

We are the women whom the left hates. And, you know if the left hates us, we must be doing something right, yes? They hate us because they don’t understand us, they actually believe that women are lesser, and they have a perverted definition of equality. With all their claims of “equality”, they don’t honestly believe that at all. Amanda Marcotte, once head blogger for cheater and long-time paternity denier John Edwards,  exposed that when she recently tried to explain why all women should be liberals:

For me, women’s rights and liberalism are, in my mind, pretty hard to unhook, and it fascinates and amuses me that you see conservatives complain that feminists are always with the democrats, as if there’s ever going to be a form of conservative feminism. You look at someone like Sarah Palin trying to wear that mantle, and you see the flaw in trying to be a so-called conservative feminist, which is that you’re not very pro-women. Women need things for equality that tailor very neatly to the general liberal agenda: Clean environment, universal healthcare, civil rights, individual rights, bodily autonomy, things like that. I fail to see how the two agendas are all that different.

Who is not very pro-women, Miss Marcotte? Silly me! I suppose you must be right because I’m a big dum-dum. How can mere women care about pesky things like the economy or icky military stuff? Math is hard! And that’s for boys! (Well, except for President Obama, evidently). I should just shut up or start screeching about my “right” to abort unborn babies so that I can be “equal” and care about pretty stuff like the environment.

Yeah, not so much. I’ll stick with Sarah Palin, Nikki Haley, Liz Cheney, Michelle Bachmann, Michelle Malkin and other strong, brilliant Moms.

I believe that the left is in for a rude awakening and a nice long time out given to them from said Mommies. Leave it to Mommy to make it all better, as always!

(Cross-posted from David Horowitz’s NewsReal)

—–

Even as a resident of the Empire State who can barely remember the last time I saw Paterson appointee Kirsten Gillibrand in the news for anything other than her lack of fame, I was unaware of just how poorly she was doing in the public eye. A recent Marist poll shows that Ms. Gillibrand currently has a 27% approval rating, with 51% disapproving of her performance. If that’s not an invitation for a GOP takeover, even in the blue state of New York, I don’t know what is.

Only 27% of registered voters in New York State think Gillibrand is doing either an excellent or good job in office. This includes 3% who say she is excelling and 24% who believe she is doing a good job. 37% rate New York’s junior senator as fair, and 14% say she is performing poorly. More than one-fifth — 22% — are unsure.

And yet, it seems to be an invitation to the dance which nobody wants to RSVP for… at least not any of the top tier names you’d expect to see in the mix. The still well respected former Governor George Pataki took a pass on the chance, preferring to start up a push for health care reform and mull over a possible presidential run in 2012. Rudy mulled it over for a while – or at least pretended to – but chose to remain in the private sector. Several other high visibility names were floated in the press, but one by one they chose another path.

That’s not to say that the GOP won’t have a name on the ballot. Bruce Blakeman, Joseph DioGuardi and David Malpass have all expressed interest in the job. Fine Republicans, one and all, but I’m not going to scold you if you don’t live in New York and find yourself saying, “Excuse me, but… who?”

No matter. With approval ratings as bad as Gillibrand’s, they’ll probably trounce her in the general election anyway, right? Not so fast there, Skippy.

Despite Gillibrand’s less than stellar job approval rating, the senator leads her Republican challengers in the race for her U.S. Senate seat. When pitted against Bruce Blakeman, Gillibrand receives 52% of voters’ support to Blakeman’s 28%. One-fifth are unsure.

When it comes to Joseph DioGuardi, Gillibrand has a 20 percentage point lead. 50% of voters support Gillibrand while 30% are behind DioGuardi. Here, too, one-fifth are unsure.

And, if David Malpass were to win the Republican nomination and face Gillibrand in November, the sitting senator leads here as well. 52% of registered voters in New York State say they would vote for Gillibrand while 28% report they will back Malpass. 20% are unsure.

If we’ve learned one thing from state level politics, it’s that name recognition is important. People may not care much for the job Gillibrand has done, but when asked to pick between her and someone they’ve never even heard of, a sufficient number of them will go with the devil they know rather than risk supporting somebody who might be even worse.

For any of these candidates to break through, they’re going to need the money and ground game to get their name recognition and favorables way up in a relatively short period of time. And thus far, people don’t seem overly inclined to open up their wallets. Earned media isn’t going to do it for them. This is New York, and even in the somewhat more conservative upstate regions, the vast majority of local papers would rather cover a lecture series on the declining numbers of banded woolly caterpillars than admit that a Republican was holding a press event.

I know the NRSC is busy these days, what with all of the 2010 opportunities popping up around the nation, but Gillibrand is standing here with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. Only a moderate amount of star power and/or cash should be required to push her over the edge. If the GOP lets this low hanging fruit slip away and they wind up one seat short of a Senate majority next January, somebody is going to be kicking themselves.

This morning, I received an e-mail from Allen Nieschwietz of the Brenham (Texas) Banner-Press, who asked if I could help him verify a bit of local news. Mr. Nieschwietz said that a Brenham resident had seen the photo and come into the Banner-Press office to report that he had built that rocking horse and sent it to the Palin family as a gift.

Nieschwietz wanted to verify this fact and solicited my assistance. Always eager to help a small-town reporter, I forwarded his e-mail to a couple of my sources and one of them quickly replied:

Thanks, Stacy. We got in touch with him to confirm that it’s the same rocking horse.

So residents of Brenham, Texas, will soon be reading about this remarkable local story in the Banner-Press, but I hope Mr. Nieschwietz won’t mind my scoring an online exclusive here first. (Hey, I started at a 6,000-circulation weekly in 1986 and didn’t make it this far by missing out on scoops.)

As for Piper Palin’s rocking horse, let us hope she absorbs some of that courageous Lone Star spirit that earned Texans their famous praise:

“They have fought grandly, nobly,
and we must have more of them.”

(Cross-posted at The Other McCain.)

Those treacherous bastards!
NRSC to endorse Charlie Crist?
– The Other McCain, May 12, 2009

The national GOP establishment began seriously meddling in state primaries during the Bush presidency. Maybe this kind of national party interference with the Republican primary process had been going on behind the scenes for years, but during the 2002, 2004 and 2006 elections cycles the evidence of blatant favoritism from GOP HQ became apparent to many conservatives.

Especially during the years when Karl Rove was ensconced at the White House and Ken Mehlman ran the RNC, the Republican establishment lined up money and endorsements behind “safe” or “centrist” candidates to the disadvantage of more conservative primary opponents. For me, the straw that broke the camel’s back was in 2004, when the establishment backed Johnny Isakson over Herman Cain in the Georgia Senate primary. Although Isakson is fairly conservative by D.C. standards, he had long been considered a “squish” by more hard-core Georgia Republicans, and Cain was the far more appealing candidate to many conservatives. The Rove/Mehlman favoritism toward Isakson, however, proved decisive.

As bad as that kind of interference was, however, it was at least not official. The Rove/Mehlman establishment axis operated in a quiet way to anoint favorites in key primaries, but it was never a matter of the national committees — RNC, National Republican Senatorial Committee or National Republican Congressional Committee — putting their official imprimatur on one candidate. So when it was first reported in May 2010 that Sen. John Cornyn and the NRSC would officially endorse Gov. Charlie Crist for the Senate seat being vacated by Mel Martinez, my head exploded, as did the heads of Dan McLaughlin and Erick Erickson at Red State.

National party committees have, in the past, expended money to protect Republican incumbents against primary challengers — a practice I oppose, but which is (unfortunately) permitted under the NRSC and NRCC rules. However, for the NRSC to endorse a candidate for an open seat in a contested primary 15 months before the primary is something utterly unprecedented. So I uncorked the bottle:

[T]he recto-cranial inversion cases at GOP-HQ are planning another atavistic blunder . . .
Why would any conservative ever send another dime to the NRSC after this? . . .
To hell with Charlie Crist and to hell with the NRSC. Go give some money to Marco Rubio.

John Hawkins of Right Wing News called for Cornyn’s resignation as NRSC chairman. So many other conservatives clearly felt the same way — No Sheeples Here, American Power, Down With Tyranny, Dad29 and CrankyCon quickly jumped in — that, three days later, I launched Not One Red Cent, a group blog devoted exclusively to the grassroots rebellion against the Republican establishment. The next day, I explained the inspiration in a Greenroom post:

We were standing outside the Continental Lounge in Rosslyn, Va., while the young Republican operative explained it to me.
“All they care about is getting their chairmanships back, and they don’t care how they get there,” said the operative. “They don’t want to spend any money, so they were looking for a self-funder.”
“They” are Republican senators, and what my friend was explaining was the otherwise inexplicable decision of the National Republican Senatorial Committee to endorse Charlie Crist in the Florida Senate race — 15 months before the primary! . . .
Red State founder Erick Erickson weighed in with a post titled, “Not One Dime to the NRSC.”
Well, after talking to some of my conservative friends Thursday night, it occurred to me that “not one dime” might be about nine cents too much.
NOT ONE RED CENT!

A little less than 10 months later, Ben Smith of the Politico finds conservatives talking about Marco Rubio as a 2012 presidential candidate, after Rubio reported raising $3.6 million in the first three months of 2010, a point deserving further explanation:

What’s impressive about Rubio’s fundraising report is that his average donation was less than $100 and fewer than 1% of his donors are “maxed out.” He’s had more than 50,000 contributors to date. That means all he has to do is contact his list of donors and say, “How about another $20?” and — bam! — he’s got another million dollars, right there. Small donors make a big difference, and it’s highly unlikely that Crist can match that kind of grassroots enthusiasm.

The point is that you should never believe that you are too small to make a difference, or that the Big Guys have so many advantages that the Little Guys can’t win. A relative handful of bloggers and 50,000 people who gave small donations to Marco Rubio are on the verge of victory in a conservative grassroots revolution. Help finish the job.

NOT ONE RED CENT!

Many people believe Democracy obsolete.
They are wrong.
Obsolete is the one thing
Democracy can never be.

R. Buckminster Fuller – “No More Secondhand God”

In responding to Rep. Paul Ryan’s speech to the Oklahoma Council on Public Affairs on March 31, even some of the constitutional conservatives on the HotAir headline thread and then again around the Quote of the Day gave both speech and speaker rave reviews. The general reaction to Ryan verges on “presidential boomlet,” and, really, why couldn’t this man be president, and as soon as we need him to be? He’s as qualified as… Woodrow Wilson was. He’s certainly as qualified as… Abraham Lincoln was. More qualified in many ways than various presidents any of us could bring up…

When people ask, as they often have over recent months, what I mean when I refer to “progressive conservatism,” I have often pointed to Paul Ryan. He’s not the only exemplar I could name, but he’s one of the best. Consider the entirety of his approach – and also consider passages in his speech like this one:

The Democratic leaders of Congress and in the White House hold a view they call “Progressivism.” Progressivism began in Wisconsin, where I come from. It came into our schools from European universities under the spell of intellectuals such as Hegel and Weber, and the German leader Bismarck. The best known Wisconsin Progressive was actually a Republican, Robert LaFollette.

Progressivism was a powerful strain in both political parties for many years. Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, and Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, both brought the Progressive movement to Washington.

Early Progressives wanted to empower and engage the people. They fought for populist reforms like initiative and referendum, recalls, judicial elections, the breakup of monopoly corporations, and the elimination of vote buying and urban patronage. But Progressivism turned away from popular control toward central government planning. It lost most Americans and consumed itself in paternalism, arrogance, and snobbish condescension. “Fighting Bob” LaFollette, Teddy Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson would have scorned the self-proclaimed “Progressives” of our day for handing out bailout checks to giant corporations, corrupting the Congress to purchase votes for government controlled health care, and funneling billions in Jobs Stimulus money to local politicians to pay for make-work patronage. That’s not “Progressivism,” that’s what real Progressives fought against!

(Emphasis added.)

For all I know, Ryan’s been talking this way for years, and I’ll assume barring hard evidence to the contrary that he picked up on this theme on his own, not from posts at the HotAir Greenroom and Zombie Contentions. He probably just sees the same thing that, say, Newt Gingrich saw when he started speaking about “real progress and real change” sometime during the last decade. It’s a completely natural and congenial way, in my view one of the better ways, to approach our political moment both theoretically and practically – even if it seems to conflict with the tactic of all-out, all-conflating assault on and total condemnation of progressivism, an alternative but equally natural, if arguably less promising, response to our fundamental political disagreement with today’s nominal progressives.

The sections in Ryan’s speech that deal directly with “real progressives” vs “regressive” progressives represent only a small part of his manifesto, but the critique is interwoven throughout, and implicitly invoked whenever Ryan refers to “Progressivists” rather than to “progressives,” emphasizing the distinction between those who merely exploit a tradition or belief system, and those who represent its authentic spirit.

In short, Ryan wants to deny anyone the sole possession of this political turf. A proud Wisconsinite, he is understandably reluctant to reject his state’s political tradition – a brand of progressivism known as “the Wisconsin Idea.” And why shouldn’t Ryan be proud? As he points out, and as I have found myself repeatedly having to point out, many elements of progressivism are so deeply embedded in our political life, not just in progressive states but nationwide, that hardly anyone questions them at all. Instead, conservatives all across America have been and are making good use of them – including the primary campaign, the citizen initiative, the insistence on transparency and on the rights of an informed citizenry. Rather than asserting a fundamental contradiction between his “real” progressivism and constitutionalism, Ryan asserts and demonstrates their dynamic interdependence. And why shouldn’t Paul Ryan of WI seek to hold this ground, not just for his own sake, but for our sake in the effort to build a winning and, eventually, a governing coalition?

As for Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and their followers, they may not deserve association with the most evil tyrants in world history, but they really do have something in common with the worst traitors to real progressivism.  They have reversed the original progressive demand for citizen empowerment. In so doing they have, arguably, embraced what makes “liberal fascism” fascistic (and illiberal).  They have crossed – are crossing – the line between authentic political progress, real progressivism, and its opposite.

The spirit of the Progressive Era was much broader than the ideas and policies of any particular leader or intellectual, but the examples of TR and Wilson, whom Ryan describes as having “brought the Progressive movement to Washington,” remain instructive. Running for president on the Bull Moose/Progressive Party platform in 1912, Roosevelt and his allies called for national referenda and measures enabling the popular recall of federal officials. One of Wilson’s central criticisms of congress in the work that made his name was aimed at the customary secret deliberations of all-powerful committees.  First as governor of New Jersey and then as president, Wilson liked to call for “pitiless publicity” as the best means of exposing and ending corruption and misgovernment. In the battle to gain approval of the League of Nations, before being permanently sidelined by an incapacitating stroke, Wilson at one point proposed a national referendum on the issue, and had prepared to make the elections of 1920 into one. Earlier, the progressive opponents of Wilson – who included the Wisconsinite whom Ryan mentions, Robert LaFollette – had called for a national referendum on entering World War I. (They probably would have lost.)

Can anyone imagine Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid, for all of their bluster about being on the side of the people, putting Obamacare to a popular vote?  Which side in the current fight is trying to make the 2010 elections into a referendum on a Obamaism?

Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to ask for the people’s direct OK on Obamacare. Maybe we should have been asked directly about TARP, about the bailouts, about raising the debt ceiling, about the Stimulus or Son of Stimulus. Maybe we should be consulted directly when the debt commission issues its recommendations. No value added taxation without referendum! I’d have a good feeling about a popular vote on some version of Ryan’s Road Map versus the Obama-Pelosi-Reid-style budget gimmickry.

I even find myself attracted sometimes to the ultra-progressive ideas of Buckminster Fuller, who, in his wonderfully excessive prose-poetic essay “No More Secondhand God,” written at the outset of World War II, proposed a system of direct mass democracy via a kind of proto-internet (“electrified democracy”), which he conceived of as the total repudiation and rejection of the barbarism then engulfing the world. He answered fears of “mob rule” with an idealistic faith in an educated citizenry, and with an engineer’s trust in the political design he drafted.

We don’t have to go that far, or even as far as TR wanted to go. This year’s mid-terms, which Ryan views as the last stop before the end of American exceptionalism and constitutional government, may be referendum enough if they put a congressional bloc in place sufficient to impair Obamacare’s implementation.

Still, I’d be happy to see the national question framed as follows, winner take all: Who are the real progressives in 2010, the real supporters of progress, the real spokespersons for a better future – the proponents or the opponents of Obamacare?

I know Paul Ryan’s answer. He makes it very clear. I agree with him, and I think that the American people, overall, agree with us.

cross-posted at Zombie Contentions