Tag Archives: Republocratic Demmicans

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Some Notes from Across the Pond, and More

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First a thought about the Tea Party from The London Telegraph in this excerpt from a James Delingpole post:

Liberty is not a pick and mix free-for-all in which you think government should ban the things you don’t like and encourage you things you do like: that’s how Libtards think. Libertarianism – and the Tea Party is nothing if its principles are not, at root, libertarian ones – is about recognising that having to put up with behaviour you don’t necessarily approve of is a far lesser evil than having the government messily and expensively intervene to regulate it.

And this isn’t an argument for anarchy. There are still plenty of ways society can make known its disapproval of certain “immoral” practices, such as through the traditional method of stigma. Libertarianism doesn’t mean doing what the hell you like and letting everyone else go hang themselves. It’s about doing whatever the hell you like so long as it doesn’t harm others. (Property rights, for example, would remain sacrosanct).

Maybe this technically isn’t directly from the Brits, but it is the Brit Samizdata blog quoting the American Richard Viguerie:

Some have asked how the Tea Party movement hopes to pressure Republican leaders or influence the party. That’s the wrong way to look at it. The goal is not to pressure Republican leaders but to become the Republican leaders. The goal is not to influence the party but to become the party.

That led to another Viguerie comment

“Voters have given Republicans one more chance to get it right,” Richard A. Viguerie said today. “They are on probation, and if they mess up again, they won’t get another chance.”

“The last time the Republicans were in charge, they became the party of big spending, Big Government, and Big Business. They abandoned the philosophy of Ronald Reagan and cozied up to lobbyists and special interests. And they paid a price at the polls.

“This year, the Democrats under President Obama and Speaker Pelosi drove millions of voters right back into the arms of the Republicans. But if Republicans return to their bad habits – if they start working for K Street instead of Main Street – they will pay a terrible price. Tea Party voters and conservatives will turn them out in the 2012 primaries.

“People will say: Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, and the Republican Party is dead,” Viguerie said.

The Chief would add the observation that there was once a political party called the Federalists. A bit later in history there was one called the Whigs. Both died and went away. The Republicans are still able to profit from those examples.

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November 3rd Political Contest

Stopping Sarah Palin
There have been some ferocious denials today about it. Many would-be 2012 candidates have denounced it, etc.

Here are the facts: there is a significant, though small contingent of heavily anti-Palin forces at the upper echelons of the Establishment GOP in Washington….

…here is what you need to know about these same people: they largely despise the tea party movement. They loath Jim DeMint too, but view Palin as easier to pick on. They think the issues being advanced by small government types are ridiculous. They do not like Sarah Palin because they think (a) she is not very bright and (b) she is not ‘grounded’ in the ways of the political world of Washington.

In reality, these people loath Sarah Palin because she is standing up to them, the policies these people have long advocated and Palin opposes have contributed to the mess we are in, and Sarah Palin and the candidates she is backing have largely been kicking their asses to kingdom come.

Between those attacking Palin and Palin, I’m with Palin.
The Chief heartily concurs!

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RINOs Circle Wagons of Political Correctness

The Chief has taken the liberty of making a number of clarifying interpretive edits to the original article text. The original wording is present…but clarified appropriately (IMHO).

Liz Cheney Group Defends Itself Against Criticism by ConservativesRINOs

The conservative group led by Liz Cheney is having to defend itself against criticism from fellow conservatives Bushian RINOS who say that an ad attacking Attorney General Eric Holder is unfair.

Unfair? WTF?

The ad, launched by Keep America Safe, an advocacy group led by Cheney, criticizes Holder for not disclosing details about Justice Department lawyers who have previously defended alleged terrorists.

The video, which surfaced last week, brands the lawyers as the “Al Qaeda 7″ and ridicules the Justice Department as the “Department of Jihad.” The narrator questions, “Who are these government officials?…Whose values do they share?”

Based on their decisions, not an unreasonable question, but also not exactly politically correct.

Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller has called it “offensive” that the patriotism of agency lawyers is questioned by Cheney’s group.

Doesn’t it say somewhere “By their fruits ye shall know them.”?

Another way of stating the issue is to note that If they walk like ducks, quack like ducks, then they’re ducks!”

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Not Exactly Party Time for GOP Establishment

First, the positive outlook for the GOP on this bye-election eve:

Republicans Are Poised for Gains in Key Elections

Republicans appear positioned for strong results in three hard-fought elections Tuesday. But isolated, off-year contests aren’t always reliable indicators of what will happen in the wider federal and state races held in even-numbered years.

Democrats and Republicans are jostling to glean messages from voters in a race for a U.S. House seat in far northern New York, as well as from contests for governor in New Jersey and Virginia. Republicans, increasingly optimistic, say the contests foreshadow trouble for President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party’s ambitious agenda heading toward the 2010 congressional elections.

“We will be looking very closely at the results in these three races and reminding Democrats of the message they send about the agenda that they are forcing on American taxpayers,” said Paul Lindsay, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which coordinates GOP House races.

It’ll be very interesting to see how these votes turn out…especially NY-23, and New Jersey.

At the same time, there is this recent polling result, which should give the GOP party leaders some pause:

Partisan Trends
Democrats Inch Up in Partisan ID during October, GOP Slips

For the third straight month, the number of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats inched up while the number of Republicans fell slightly.

Hmmm. On the eve of some potentially significant GOP gains, this other trend seems at first glance to be a bit contradictory.

Obviously something else is at work here….

What NY-23 Says About The GOP And Its Voters

THIS is interesting…it provides an local example that helps explain both of the above reports.

The race in New York’s 23rd Congressional District highlights the concerns many Republican voters have about their party leaders.

At a time when 73% of Republicans believe their party’s representatives in Congress have lost touch with the GOP base, 11 county leaders in upstate New York picked a nominee for Congress who supported the Democratic president’s stimulus package, his health care reform plan and “card check” legislation designed to make union organizing easier. All three items are overwhelmingly opposed by Republican voters – and even by Republicans in Congress.

The decision by county GOP leaders to nominate such a candidate seemed almost designed to provoke the party’s core voters, and it did.

A Conservative Party candidate, Doug Hoffman, entered the fray and picked up endorsements from many leading national Republicans.

Newt Gingrich, on the other hand, urged voters to stick with the party’s official nominee. He said a decision by local party leaders was good enough for him, but most Republican voters don’t have such confidence in the party leadership.

In spite of his obvious talents and ability, IMHO Gingrich has shown himself to be thoroughly in the country-club wing of the GOP that is…uncomfortable…if not hostile, to the GOP’s would-be grass-roots conservative base.   Once the inside initiates anoint their candidate, and the conservatives go out and support him/her, then they are supposed to fade back into the lawn until needed again for the next election cycle.

Been there.  Done that. 

“Ain’t gonna work on THAT farm no more!” increasingly seems to be the attitude of the potentially GOP conservative base, as it indicated even more strongly in this result:

73% of GOP Voters Say Congressional Republicans Have Lost Touch With Their Base

President Obama told an audience at a Democratic Party fundraiser Wednesday night that Republicans often “do what they’re told,” but GOP voters don’t think their legislators listen enough to them.

Just 15% of Republicans who plan to vote in 2012 state primaries say the party’s representatives in Congress have done a good job of representing Republican values.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 73% think Republicans in Congress have lost touch with GOP voters from throughout the nation. Twelve percent (12%) are undecided. These numbers are basically unchanged from a survey in late April.

Time will tell if the GOP leadership starts to get the picture or not.

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RINO Season Returns

GOP Graham’s endorsement boosts climate change bill

In an op-ed published Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina joined with Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the chamber’s leading Democratic advocate of climate legislation, to promote a bipartisan plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

They proposed a compromise that reduces U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions – which are widely considered to contribute to climate change – through a market-based “cap and trade” system, combined with a “clean energy” program providing incentives for nuclear power, offshore oil and gas drilling, and coal emissions controls.

The nuke bit, and POSSIBLE extra drilling are good, but doesn’t offset the rest of the Cap and Tax provisions.

Overall, with Republicans like Sen. Graham-cracker, who needs Democrats?

UPDATE: Graham-cracker isn’t alone in exemplifying the RINO attitude; of course Olympia Snowe(-blind) has made a career of this.

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Where the Sun Doesn’t Shine: Colin’s Moves to the Donk Side

Colin Powell fires back at Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney

In the latest round of the increasingly heated intra-GOP feud, former Secretary of State Colin Powell Sunday defended his Republican credentials and fired back at radio host Rush Limbaugh and former Vice President Dick Cheney, saying the party had to expand beyond its conservative base.

“Rush will not get his wish and Mr. Cheney was misinformed – I am still a Republican,” Powell said in a much-anticipated interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation” two weeks after Cheney suggested on the same show that the retired general had left the party by endorsing Barack Obama last fall.

Frankly, that dog don’t hunt. Powell has endorsed Donk policies, criticized the GOP, and endorsed B.O.

Applying the rule that “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, so it’s a duck!”, then in spite of any protestations to the contrary, Colin Powell has moved himself out of the GOP to the Donk side.

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How revolting!

Here comes California’s May 19 Rebellion

Whoo-hooo!

California voters head to the polls next week with predictions of doom echoing in their ears if they decline to endorse the massive tax hikes prescribed for them by big Democratic majorities in the statehouse, Arnold and a handful of now ruined-politically Republican legislators.

“Shrill” doesn’t begin to describe the campaign designed to stampede the Golden State electorate. The latest ad has a weary, soot-covered fire-fighter urging a yes vote on the tax hike. The message is clear: Vote no and your homes will burn down.

Not even this sort of fear-mongering is moving the needle towards “yes” on the massive tax surge on next week’s ballot as poll after poll shows all the key measures put forward by the tax-and-spend-and tax-again crowd failing badly.

Good for California, if this trend continues.

Arnold is doing his best to summon up the old magic but his appeal long ago hit Gray Davis-levels. Arnold was elected to slash taxes and spending, and somehow he confused that mandate with orders to throw in with the public employee unions. Too bad. He could have been a contender.

The GOP “leaders” who signed on to this roadmap to ruin have been dumped by their caucuses, and go down in California history as the biggest marks to have ever had a seat at the poker game known as the “Big Five” negotiations wherein the governor and the top Republicans and Democrats in the State Assembly and Senate hash out budget matters.

Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom and every other would be Democratic governor are watching their chances in ’10 swirl down the drain as deep disgust with the tax-addicted grows.

Looks like the voters aren’t buying into the Governator’s transplanted version of Austrian-style National State Socialism.

What happens next is anyone’s guess because very few people think Arnold has any game left and so the state is effectively leaderless after its voters deliver an unambiguous message to carve state government back to the bone.

The first logical step would indeed be massive downsizing in the state government outside of public safety and education. Public assistance budgets will have to be slashed, and public employee pensions renegotiated to manageable levels.

California’s budget woes are much greater than those of GM and Chrysler combined, but no give-backs have even been requested of the public employee unions beyond a symbolic loss of a holiday or two lost. Entitlement payments have to be slashed and state assets sold.

The Golden State is bankrupt. It needs a quasi-bankruptcy proceeding, and it needs it now.

It’s fitting that the film Terminator Salvation is coming out too…looks like the voters are taking the title to heart, and seeking their salvation.

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ex-RINO Becomes Donk

Obama and Biden Publicly Welcome Specter to Democratic Party

President Obama and Vice President Biden publicly welcomed Sen. Arlen Specter to the Democratic Party Wednesday, calling him a man of “immense personal courage” and “unmatched integrity.”

Does this mean he lives up to the high ethical standards of Charlie Rangel, Charles Murtha, and the tax honesty of SecTreas Geithner and the former Sen. Daschle?

Personal courage to jump parties? When he was down +20% in the GOP primary polling? Yeah. right.

Hope he didn’t let the door hit him in the ass on the way out! Good riddence!

Constitution Watch

D.C. Congresscritter to be Created?

Although the Chief realizes that in our enlightened age of the Abomination Obamanation worrying about what the Constitution actually says is far out of fashion, he still offers the following:

Read the Constitution: D.C. is not a state

Which part of Article I, Section 2 do proponents of the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2009 not comprehend? The Constitution of the United States clearly states that “the House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states.” The Constitution created D.C. as the federal “seat of government” – not as a state. Therefore, D.C. cannot have a voting Member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Proponents are correct that the Constitution gives Congress the right to make all laws for the District. But that clearly does not permit Congress to substitute its will for that of the whole people to rewrite the Constitution. So, until the Constitution is amended to make D.C. a state, creating a voting representative for it as if it were a state would be “the most premeditatedly unconstitutional act by Congress in decades,” in the words of George Washington Law School professor Jonathan Turley.

There’s some further extension of this in the cited OpEd…it’s worth the read IMHO.

Sounds clear enough, at least to someone who can read, and properly attach actual meanings to words. Ooops. Apparently that leaves out much of the current Donk dominated People’s Congress….

Few roadblocks expected for D.C. voting rights bill

Congress is poised to grant the District of Columbia a legislator with full voting rights in the House of Representatives.

After failed attempts in previous years, a wide Democratic majority in Congress and a Democrat in the White House have paved the way for the possible success of the bill, but there is still a chance Senate Republicans could block it.

The legislation would add two members to the House roster — one from the District, the other from Utah — increasing its ranks to 437.

This is designed to throw a political bone to the Republicans, and all too sadly, a number of them are willing to roll over on command and accede to the Donks’ latest assault on the Constitutional order, which isn’t made any better by the application of this “bipartisan” fig-leaf.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a hint in all this of actually respecting the Constitution enough to do it the right way, with a constitutional amendment.

As a historical note, this sort of swapping of Congressional seats to maintain a superficial balance has happened before; most notably in the Missouri Compromise, allowing the admission of Missouri as a slave-holding state, along with Maine as a non-slave state.

It’s telling that the current state of the body politic is such that this kind of juggling of representation is the only thing that apparently allows the (illusory) continuation of political agreement.

UPDATE:

The Senate passed a key preliminary vote Tuesday morning for the District to get full voting rights in Congress. Senators voted 62-34 to take up the legislation. A final Senate vote to approve the legislation could come as early as Tuesday afternoon.

Sadness.

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RINO Joins Socialist Caucus

Sen. Graham Open to ‘Nationalizing the Banks’

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina of the Senate Budget Committee said today on “This Week” that he is open to “nationalizing the banks.”

“I think if you put most of our major banks under a ‘stress test,’ they’re going to fail,” Graham told me.

“This idea of nationalizing bank is not comfortable but I think we have got so many toxic assets spread throughout the banking and financial community throughout the world that we’re going to have to do something that no one ever envisioned a year ago, no one likes,” he said.

“To me banking and housing are the root cause of this program,” Graham said. “I would not take off [the table] the idea of nationalizing the banks.”

With RINOs like Sen Lindsey Graham-cracker, who needs Donks?

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Obamanation Abomination

Agreement Reached on Economic Stimulus, Senators Say

Senators agreed on an economic stimulus plan of at least $780 billion to rescue the U.S. economy from sinking into what President Barack Obama warns would be an even deeper recession if Congress doesn’t act.

Three Republicans agreed to join Democrats who control the chamber in supporting the measure. A Senate vote, possibly this weekend, would move Congress closer to Obama’s deadline of sending a bill to him by mid-February.

Words seem to fall short at describing this quivering gelatinous legislative toxic blob, that will surely draw us along the path of B.O.’s National Socialist Democrat American Party (N.S.D.A.P.)

Unfortunately the Senate apparently can always be counted on to find at least a few Republocrats (also known as RINOS) to join with the party of the jackass and give them cover from bearing the full responsibility for their constitutional malpractice. In this case the Republocratic caucus is made up of the Maineiac senators, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe(-job), and the Pennsylvania RINO spook Arlen Spectre Spector, may their names live forever in the annals of political infamy.

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Beware of the RINOs!

Senate GOP leader says party must change

Better late than never!

After crushing defeats in back-to-back elections, the top Senate Republican warned Thursday that the GOP risks remaining out of power in the White House and Congress unless it better explains its core principles to woo one-time faithful and new loyalists.

“Unless we do something to adapt, our status as a minority party may become too pronounced for an easy recovery,” Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told the Republican National Committee on Thursday. “The situation is challenging, but it’s far from irreversible.”

After the House GOP hung tough in yesterday’s vote on the B.O. Omnibus Bailout/Boondoggle Spending Act,
the Chief takes this as being encouraging. If the Senate GOP’ers can also discover that yes indeed, they DO actually have a spine and can stand up to the Donkey party. If this is really the case, then the party’s troubles will be on the road to solution.

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GOP Conservatives Show Signs of Life

RNC draft rips Bush’s bailouts

Dang! Of all the unexpected political developments to have pop up, this is one of the most welcome in some time.

Republican Party officials say they will try next month to pass a resolution accusing President Bush and congressional Republican leaders of embracing “socialism,” underscoring deep dissension within the party at the end of Mr. Bush’s administration.

The Chief could question the wording here…is is really “dissension” to want the GOP to stick with it’s principles? Wouldn’t that be loyalism? But perhaps I quibble.

Those pushing the resolution, which will come before the Republican National Committee at its January meeting, say elected leaders need to be reminded of core principles. They said the RNC must take the dramatic step of wading into policy debates, which traditionally have been left to lawmakers.

“We can’t be a party of small government, free markets and low taxes while supporting bailouts and nationalizing industries, which lead to big government, socialism and high taxes at the expense of individual liberty and freedoms,” said Solomon Yue, an Oregon member and co-sponsor of a resolution that criticizes the U.S. government bailouts of the financial and auto industries. Republican National Committee Vice Chairman James Bopp Jr. wrote the resolution and asked the rest of the 168 voting members to sign it.

Hear! Hear!

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Obamacized GOP

Principle: Former Secretary of State Colin Powell wants his party stripped of the Reaganite values that won it the presidency for 20 of the last 28 years. Meet the “Grand Obama Party.”

For many years it has been accepted that Gen. Colin Powell — who became a national icon thanks to appointments by President Ronald Reagan and both President Bushes — was more moderate than many of his colleagues.

What was not known until lately is how much animus he has for the governing philosophy of those who gave him the opportunity to achieve fame and millions in book sales.

In a Sunday CNN interview, Powell charged that Republicans have been “shouting at the world and at the country.” They “use polarization for political advantage,” listen to talk radio hosts who “seem to appeal to our lesser instincts rather than our better instincts,” and aren’t looking into the “hearts and minds” of blacks, Hispanics and Asians.

ENOUGH ALREADY! As a military leader Powell was supremely successful. Unfortunately, when faced with the political environment where folks don’t snap to a crisp brace when he enters the room, and reply “Yes, sir! Right away sir.” to his political ruminations, they are obviously political trailer-park trash, worthy of no respect or consideration.

The conclusion of this IBD op-ed couldn’t state the result of this, that the path of liberal Republicanism (cough! gag! retch!) is truly the political bridge to nowhere.

Who, after all, would vote for a dime-store Democrat when they can have the Saks Fifth Avenue version? Republicans lost this election not for opposing Roe or supporting tax cuts, but because they nominated a selfless patriot whose position was suspect on issues ranging from taxes to immigration to global warming. They lost because during 12 years of control of Congress, they too often spent money like out-of-control Democrats, thus tarnishing their brand.

When Americans get a taste of the long-term fruits of the taxpayer-funded rescues of industry and finance now being doled out so casually, it won’t be an Obamacized Republican Party they will want to turn to for help; whatever America’s ethnic makeup in the future, we will need leaders who shout on behalf of the principles of freedom.

The LAST thing the GOP needs is another dose of RINO-virus, expecially after the failure of the RINO-ish “maverick” run of the senior senator from Arizona.

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Transparency vs. Golden Rule

Fed Defies Transparency Aim in Refusal to Disclose

The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn’t require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.

Looks like the Golden Rule wins: “THOSE WHO HAVE THE GOLD, MAKE THE RULES.”

SD Politics

Johnson Taking Conservative Role on Bailout!?!

The Senate bailout vote

Sen. Tim Johnson (Donk, SD) voted against the Great Gravy & Omnivorous Omnibus Bailout Bill (GGOOBB), while Rep. Sen John Thune voted in favor of it.

So who’s being more conservative these days?

Two probable factors involved here, in the Chief’s humble opinion.

(1) The DC Senate Donks KNEW there were PLENTY of votes to pass the GGOOBB and gave clearance with a wink and a nod to Johnson to vote no, in cognizance of his delicate condition as a Donk seeking re-election in SD, considered a solidly “Red” state (at least Presidentially).

(2) Sen. Thune has a LONG record of what was referred to in Naval Terminology as “brown-nosing” McCain, going back to the McCain-Feingold Political Speech Limitation & Incumbent Protection Act (otherwise known as campaign finance “reform”), and more recently, his EARLY heartfelt endorsement of McCain.

So, what’s new? Politics as usual?  Maybe it’s a bit more cmplicated at that…the tax aspects of this thing are causing a number of libDonks to oppose it, or at the least to wrinkle their noses, while the otehr earmarks have the same effect on the conservatives.  So who knows REALLY without reading the whole 400+ page GGOOBB.

Probably no one knows for sure, because no one has actually read the whole thing.

SD Politics

Thune Catches RINO-virus With anti-Drilling Bill

Senate “Gang” (Including Thune) Sells out to Donks on Drilling

Not-So-Slick Oil Bill

Intro to Article: Some GOP senators allied with Democrats are peddling a “drilling” bill that actually adds exploration restrictions, raises taxes and may even end up meaning no new domestic oil. Some Republicans never learn.

Does this ever nail it! It’s even worse than Charlie Brown trying to kick the football!

Whenever the nation is faced with a big problem that the people demand be solved, we can always be sure of one thing: A group of Republican senators will scramble away from their party’s principles to join Democrats in some grand “compromise” scheme.

This kind of stuff just drives me nuts! What’s wrong with showing some cojones for a change instead of falling for the false belief that a “Republican” compromise gesture gets us ANYTHING, except farther away from where we really need to be going.

Unfortunately SD’s lone GOP Senator John Thune has bought into (or been bought into) this display of political pusillanimity.  Or maybe the RINO (Republicans In Name Only) virus in in the CapitolHill water.

The bipartisan “Gang of 10,” led by Republican Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Democrat Kent Conrad of North Dakota has grown into a “Gang of 16,” with GOP Sens. John Warner of Virginia, Norm Coleman of Minnesota and John Sununu of New Hampshire the newest misguided Republicans. A more apt nickname would be “The Gang That Couldn’t Think Straight.”

The “comprehensive” bill that these four, plus fellow Republicans Bob Corker of Tennessee, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Johnny Isakson of Georgia and John Thune of South Dakota are joining with Democrats to push would exclude — permanently — the entire Pacific Coast from drilling. It would also limit a lot of the Atlantic Coast, and ban drilling anywhere within 50 miles of shore.(Emphasis added.)

Hey, Senator…if EVERY ACRE in the country was planted to ethanolic corn crops, it STILL wouldn’t be enough to maintain our fuel supplies…we need to drill wherever there’s oil – and the recent experience of the Gulf production platforms in the face of repeated hurricanes, shows that this can be done with extremely minimal environmental risk.

It’s almost enough to make a life-long (the Chief started his involvement with Youth for Goldwater before he could even vote) Republican activist give up on the once Grand Old Party…but for what alternative? Maybe it’s time to revive the Whigs or something, since The Libertarians, and other minor parties are fatally flawed at present by their hopelessly blind situational awareness concerning the national security problems we have with Islamofascism, and the resurgent Soviet Union Russia and Putin’s Cold War II.

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Semi-Republicanism, at Best

McCain sees himself in Teddy Roosevelt mold

Senator John McCain, in a wide-ranging interview, called for a government that was frugal but more active than many conservatives might prefer. He said government should play an important role in areas like addressing climate change,…

NAH! This is a junk science issue

…regulating campaign finance…

Limiting political speech. Booooo!

…and taking care of “those in America who cannot take care of themselves.”

MAY have something here…but as always, the devil’s in the details.

“I count myself as a conservative Republican, yet I view it to a large degree in the Theodore Roosevelt mold,” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said, referring to Roosevelt’s reputation for reform, environmentalism and tough foreign policy.

On his worst day at least he’s still better than B.O. at his best.

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Governator Shows His Colors: They’re not Republican!

Arnold may consider Obama energy post

Apparently the Governator swings both ways…since he earlier endorced John McCain.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in an interview aired Sunday that he would be open to the idea of serving as energy czar in a Barack Obama administration.

Maybe he got his languages confused…he is mixing up “czar” with “fuhrer”…and just can’t resist the appeal of THAT!

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A Light in the GOP Forest

Fiscal Medicine Man

McCain shows signs of choking on another big issue, but at least there are SOME congressional Republicans that have the right idea.

When John McCain met privately with Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin after a political event in the Milwaukee suburbs on May 29, the Republican presidential candidate might not have realized that he had just come face to face with an opportunity and a test. Ryan showed him his plan to reform the economy. McCain expressed interest and said he would turn it over to his campaign’s economists.

Ooops. Bad move:

That was truly ominous. If the Kemp-Roth tax cut had been handed over to economists three decades ago, it probably would have died in its crib and aborted the national and Republican revival under President Ronald Reagan.

…and the good news part is:

Ryan’s plan is more sweeping than the proposal by his former boss and mentor Jack Kemp, who dealt only with taxes. In 70 pages, Ryan’s “Roadmap for America’s Future” shows the way to reform taxes, control spending and brake runaway entitlement outlays….

Ryan fears potential national disaster is ahead because we “will exceed the European extent of government and bring our economy to extinction.”

ABSOLUTELY!

He foresees the U.S. government share of the economy rising from 20 percent to a calamitous 40 percent by the time his three children (ages 3, 4 and 6) reach their 30s, requiring a doubled tax rate. President Bush’s appropriations rose $49 billion over the last year, and the Democratic-controlled House upped that ante. But spending enacted by Congress is dwarfed by statutory increases in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other entitlements.

Ryan’s Roadmap makes a serious effort to cut appropriated spending. Ryan calls it “Gramm-Rudman on steroids” (referring to successive spending control measures beginning in 1985). But his boldest thrust comes in radical changes to entitlements, including an option for persons under 55 to buy private retirement insurance, plus reduced benefits and delayed retirement for Social Security. His internal revenue reform would amount to an optional modified flat tax (advocated in principle by McCain) and substituting a small business-consumption tax for the corporate income tax — while holding federal taxes to 18.5 percent of gross domestic product.

Here’s the only reason for hope in this situation:

It is hardly likely the Republican leadership will embrace Ryan’s daring agenda if it cannot even bring itself to temporarily forgo pork-barrel spending by passing a moratorium on earmarks. But Ryan represents a younger breed of reform Republicans who now have junior leadership positions.

Ryan, 38 and the top Republican on the House Budget Committee, has been working closely with freshman Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, 43, who has been named chairman of the national platform by Minority Leader John Boehner, and Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, 45, the party’s chief deputy whip. After what is expected to be another bad GOP defeat in the 2008 congressional elections, Ryan, McCarthy and Cantor could constitute the party’s new House leadership.

One can only hope!

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Chickens Coming Home to Roost

GOP Stunned By Loss in Mississippi

In a major blow to national Republicans, a Mississippi congressional seat that once voted for President Bush by a twenty-five point margin elected a Democrat on Tuesday. Prentiss County Chancery Clerk Travis Childers beat out Republican candidate Greg Davis, the mayor of Southaven, by a 54%-46% margin, a spread that several Republican strategists on Capitol Hill characterized as a startling wake-up call for a party in dire straits.

Too many RINOs, too few principles. Given a choice between the Donks, and the GOP version of Donk-lite, the real thing wins every time.

If the GOP’s alleged leadership doesn’t get some cojones and return to the principles that fueled the Reagan revolution, then the party will go the way of the Whigs, and something else, more willing to take a stand on the principles that were behind the establishment of the American republic…and if it’s not politically correct…then f-em if they can’t take the joke.

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R.I.P. – “Romney in Peace”

Speaking before a favorable audience at the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) meeting earlier today, GOP Presidential wanna-be Mitt Romney in effect declared peace in his contest with Arizona Senator McCain.

Romney Suspends Presidential Campaign

Mitt Romney suspended his faltering presidential campaign on Thursday, effectively sealing the Republican presidential nomination for John McCain. “I must now stand aside, for our party and our country,” Romney told conservatives.

“If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror,” Romney told the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

The big question left on the table at this point is how much of the true conservative core of the GOP (including the Chief!) will be able to hold their nose and support the Candidate-apparent McCain. Time will tell. Far be it from this humble blogger to venture a guess on THAT one, given that he doesn’t even know yet her HE stands on the question.

At any event, Romney’s exit remarks can do nothing but reinforce a positive position for him in the party, and may be a (hopeful) indication that he’s keeping thoughts of the future on the back burner. Frankly, the Chief hopes that this is the case, especially after reading the full text of his CPAC statement. Check it out for yourself.

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Election Notes: Romney or No One?

This is all just off the top of my head, for whatever it’s worth.

The Donk contest boiled down to NY Senator Mrs. Bubba, vs. B. Hussein Obama. Hmmmmm. Sort of like trying to choose between Stalin and Trotsky: both with the same ultimate goal, just a slightly different flavor to the means used to get there. Yech!

The big flap in the media about the GOP side is focused on the Darling of the MSM – Sen. John “The Manchurian Candidate” McCainiac. The Chief has real question about whether he would be worth a vote in the crunch. He is fatally flawed…a RINO at best, flying a false-flag of Reaganism, with a record of repeated blows to constitutional principles and policies more at home on a ticket with Kerry…who he admitted to be considering running with for V.P. And THAT is supposed to be the best the GOP can do, according to the MSM and the Country-club Establishment?

Ron Paul; very attractive on some issues, but he is totally (and fatally) bereft of situational awareness concerning foriegn affairs in general, and the Islamofascist threat in general. Not ready for the big leagues.

The Arkansas Traveler, the inimitable Huckster’s Baptist-based hatred of Mormon Romney is keeping his effort going…with the very possible effect of splitting the conservative evangelical vote so much that McCainiac is guaranteed a coronation. Interesting that this Republican version of Bill Clinton also hails originally from Hope, Arkansas. One has to wonder if there is something wierd in the water there!

Unless Romney can pull the rabbit out of the hat tomorrow, this may be the first election since the Chief could vote, that he will refrain from casting a vote at the top of the ticket, and then in the words of a Warren Zevon song “…I’m going to run and throw myself against a wall, because I’d rather feel bad than feel nothing at all.”

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Huckabee Finn’s True True Colors

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The False Conservative

Who would respond to criticism from the Club for Growth by calling the conservative, free-market campaign organization the “Club for Greed”? That sounds like Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich or John Edwards, all Democrats preaching the class struggle. In fact, the rejoinder comes from Mike Huckabee, who has broken out of the pack of second-tier Republican presidential candidates to become a serious contender — definitely in Iowa and perhaps nationally.

Robert Novak goes on in even more detail concerning the background and state of mind of yet another Arkansas governor with presidential aspirations…this time from the Rebublican…or at least RINO…side of the aisle. The last thing needed right now is a GOP version of Bubba Bill Clinton to further muddy the political waters.

To paraphrase an old saying: “If it doesn’t walk like a duck, or quack like a duck, it’s not a duck”, and neither is the Arkansas governor a conservative…any more than Bush is…which isn’t much at all.

National Insecurity

Senate RINOs Show Their (White) Flag

GOP senators offer new timeline for Iraq

A small group of Republicans facing election fights next year have rallied around war legislation they think could unite the GOP: Call for an end to U.S. combat in Iraq, but wait until President Bush is almost out of office.

Interesting timing there…”almost out of office”…not TOO much of a waffle there, eh?

The RINOs are (unfortunately) alive and well in the Senate, coming up with a bastardized proposal that combines the worst of Bush’s and the Donk’s ideas for the Iraq war.

The proposal, by Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, would require that Bush change the mission of U.S. troops from combat to primarily support roles, such as training Iraqi security forces and protecting U.S. infrastructure in Iraq. His legislation would set a goal of completing such a mission transition within 15 months.

Oh great! We’ll still be there on duty, but we won’t be ACTIVELY fighting…in other words, we’ll still be targets, but will be unable to engage in proactive tactical engagement to prevent being attacked. Also, the surrender by date certain provision is included in this load of crap.

The RINO leading roll call:

Co-sponsors of the bill include Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and Norm Coleman of Minnesota. Of the sponsors, only Voinovich is not up for re-election in 2008.

Meanwhile, the Donks and the RINOs are arguing about just where the timeline should be drawn.

Sen. Carl Levin, the Democratic chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he worked closely with Voinovich until late Thursday in the hopes of striking a compromise proposal. Levin wants to set the goal in nine months, but acknowledges he doesn’t have the votes to pass it. After Voinovich suggested extending the goal to 15 months, Democratic support dissipated, said Levin, D-Mich.

This reminds the Chief about the girl who agreed to sleep with her boyfriend for $1,000,000. When he suggested that she might be willing to do so for $5 she took great offense replying “What kind of girl do you think I am anyway?!”

His answer: “Your answer to the first question established THAT. Now we’re just negotiating the final price.”

Unfortunately, such is the state of our Congress.

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Poor Situational Awareness – Again

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Bush ‘surprised’ by conservative anger

Apparent political obliviousness:

President Bush did not intend to single out his conservative supporters for criticism in a speech on immigration reform last week and was “surprised” that his remarks angered Republicans, White House spokesman Tony Snow said today.

…followed by an attempted backpedal…

“He was surprised by the reaction,” Mr. Snow said of Mr. Bush’s speech in Glynco, Ga., last week. “The speech in Georgia was, ‘We’ve got a serious problem and we need to fix it.’ It was not in any way designed to be pointed at Republicans.”

The only trouble was, that the Prez’s speech WAS pointedly directed against the conservative opponents to the administration supported Kennedy-McCainiac Mexican Migration Promotion Act, and no amount of spin from Tony Snow can undo that.

Mr. Snow yesterday said the immigration dispute between the president and conservatives “does not mark a point of disjunction,…”

…if this isn’t a point of disjuction…Snow is looking at the sun and calling it the moon!

…and emphasized that the White House recognizes and is responding to conservative opposition to the measure.

Yeah, responding by effectively labeling it as destructive, untruthful, un-patriotic obstructionism. Hey Tony – we ARE capable of understanding English – even in the form of Dubya’s sometimes fractured syntax.

“We understand if you’re going to get this thing done, you’re gonna need Republicans,” Mr. Snow said. “It’s important to build a large coalition, including our conservative base.”

Well, this talks the talk…but the walk is in the opposite direction.

Mr. Snow’s defense of the president’s remarks shows that “the White House is in denial about this issue,” said longtime conservative publicist Craig Shirley,…

A definite case of poor situational awareness.

…an opinion shared by American Conservative Union Chairman David A. Keene. “The plain meaning of what he said was clear,” Mr. Keene said. “Tony and others within the administration had been urging conservatives prior to the president’s remarks to give Bush the benefit of the doubt as far as motives are concerned and to keep the debate civil. ‘After all,’ [Mr. Snow] said at a meeting I attended, ‘at the end of the day we’re all on the same team.’

“So it’s easy to see why he’s in denial,” Mr. Keene said, “but the president’s prepared remarks and some of the things he has said make it clear that conservatives, or at least those with the temerity to disagree with the White House line [on immigration], are no longer welcome on the team.”

This is conclusively illustrated by Karl Rove’s disinvitation to Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) telling him to “not darken the White House door”. Not exactly the way to build party unity, is it?

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Immigration Bill Unraveling in Senate

Fate of Senate immigration bill in doubt

U.S. Senate Republicans on Tuesday accused Democrats of trying to rush a vote on immigration reform, casting doubt on the fate of the White House-backed bill that would tighten border security and legalize millions of illegal immigrants. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he wanted to close debate on the bill by this week’s end despite Republicans’ objections, which could doom the fragile compromise legislation that backers say would help fix a broken immigration system through which millions of illegal immigrants have slipped into the United States.

So what seems to be the problem?

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said his fellow Republicans had a number of amendments they wanted considered before voting on the bill. But Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said Republicans were stalling. “What we have heard today are buzzwords for ‘this bill is going nowhere,'” Reid said in a Senate floor exchange with McConnell.

PUHLEEEEESE let it be going nowhere! This turkey is worse than the deplorable status quo – it’s designed to give political cover to Congressional and Administration Republocratic Demmicans while doing little or nothing to stem the flow of illegal immigration. At least with no bill passed, no one can be under the illusion that “something” is being done with the problem.

Reid said he planned to set a Senate vote for Thursday on his motion to limit debate, and it was unclear with Republican objections that it would garner the 60 votes needed in the 100-member chamber to advance the bill toward passage.

Go for it Harry…and God willing, crash and burn on this one.

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Prez, Other RINOS on Road to Political Ruin

The Demise of the Republican Party

The Chief, along with others, has previously posted on this issue, and no less than the WaPo has come out and proclaimed “No big deal, politics as usual”, noting an apparent decline in complaints about the Immigration Reform Bill Kennedy-McCainiac Mexican Migration Promotion Act. In one sense they may be right…

Congress’s week-long Memorial Day recess was expected to leave the bill in tatters. But with a week of action set to begin today, the legislation’s champions say they believe that the voices of opposition, especially from conservatives, represent a small segment of public opinion. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who led negotiations on the bill for his party, said the flood of angry calls and protests that greeted the deal two weeks ago has since receded every day.

HELLOOOOO? How many times is someone going to call up? It stands to reason that the number of complaint calls would taper off as more and more people have already registered their discontent with the direction of this attack on our national sovereignty.

Meanwhile, the pot is still simmering, and the RINOS and others of their ilk are unwilling to accept the reality of the GOP sputtering along on one engine, getting ready to take that big nose-dive into the tarmac.

The firestorm of public outcry against the proposed immigration bill is testimony enough that the Senate and the House need to be reminded that selling out the nation is a very bad idea. There are very good reasons why nations have borders.

What a concept! Borders, language, culture!

The bill is just one more way the Republican Party demonstrated that it has been steadily abandoning its fundamental principles. In essence, the Party has stood for sovereignty, the free market, fiscal prudence, private property, and small government. It was a party that historically has been reluctant to be drawn into foreign wars.

This is what drives the Chief to distraction!

Victor Gold, who was a press aide to Barry Goldwater and a speechwriter in George H.W. Bush’s administration, has a new book out, The Invasion of the Party Snatchers, that is a virtual call for the death and reconstruction of the GOP:

Gold makes no bones about it. He wants the present GOP to die so it can be born again to its former principles. The elections of 2008 are likely to bring out masses of Democrats who feel rejuvenated by the failures and missteps of the White House and the GOP. The recently reported falloff of financial support for the GOP, estimated to be as high as forty percent, might actually suggest they’re doing something wrong.

More than a few Republicans who simply do not want to live in an America that intrudes into the most private decisions of people’s lives, that throws overboard the Constitutional protections of privacy, judicial protections, and whose elected representatives have engaged in an orgy of spending, are desperately seeking real conservative leadership.

Hear, hear!

Citing severe problems with the administration and Cong GOP on the immigration issue, the Prez’s recent reversal on GlowBull warming, Cong fiscal irresponsibility, and dubious appointments (Harriet Myers, Alberto Gonzales), lead to what more and more looks like an inevitable conclusion:

Gold reflects the widespread feeling that elected Republicans no longer have any regard for the voters. “I’d just like to know there were still Republican senators around who didn’t think of the people who elected them as knuckle-walking Pleistocene morons.” This can, of course, be extended to Democrats as well.

Gold warns that what has been passed off as a new kind of conservative politics under the aegis of the neo-cons and the pressures of evangelical groups is “merely a recycled model of the old Liberal politics that led to the decline and fall of the Democratic Party in the 1960s.”

We are left to wonder how long it will take for those who regard themselves as Republicans to desert today’s GOP, mostly by refusing to vote for its candidates,

F.E.T.E.

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¡NO! to Immigration Bill

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The Chief encountered the following:

Governor Mitt Romney On The Senate Immigration Agreement

“I strongly oppose today’s bill going through the Senate. It is the wrong approach. Any legislation that allows illegal immigrants to stay in the country indefinitely, as the new ‘Z-Visa’ does, is a form of amnesty. That is unfair to the millions of people who have applied to legally immigrate to the U.S.

“Today’s Senate agreement falls short of the actions needed to both solve our country’s illegal immigration problem and also strengthen our legal immigration system. Border security and a reliable employment verification system must be our first priority.”

The Chief strongly concurs.

This act provides a fig-leaf of cover to the Republocrats in Congress and elsewhere, that “Yes, indeedy! We ARE acting to deal with the problem.” Unfortunately, the reality is different.

Just one illustration: Imagine some poor wetback schlub stalwart undocumented migrant worker making say, $12K “off the books”. The proposed Kennedy-McCain immigration con bill would have him (1) quit his job (2) go back home, and (3) pay $5K for the opportunity to get back onto a waiting list to come back in legally, and registered, and now fully taxable. Consider also that on a percentage basis, this is costing him 42% of his annual pay – to go on a list to get a “Z-visa”.

Hmmmmmm. Hmmmmm. Any guesses what his decision will be? Yeah, That’s what I thought, too!

As the saying goes: “This dog just won’t hunt!”

National Insecurity

President Goes International(ist)

A L.O.S.T. Presidency

This is not a good thing.

Any minute now, President Bush is going to make a fateful mistake. He will announce that his administration will make a concerted effort to secure the prompt ratification of a deeply flawed multilateral accord universally known by its acronym – LOST, as in the Law of the Sea Treaty.

When it comes to LOST, of course, prompt is a relative thing. It was first opened to signature and ratification in the early 1980s, but Ronald Reagan rejected it. In the mid-1990s, Bill Clinton resuscitated and negotiated a side-deal designed to fix, or at least obscure, what Mr. Reagan found objectionable.

Then, in 2004, the Bush administration decided to embrace the Law of the Sea Treaty. The argument seemed principally to be that, in the aftermath of the bruising fight over Iraq, doing so would demonstrate that the United States could still play well with its allies and other nations. Most were parties to LOST and are slavishly devoted to this and other treaties on the agenda of the Transnational Progressives.

Looks like the President’s internationalist tendencies are getting the worst of him…and/or he’s given up worrying about his base and embraceed the joys of being a totally lame duck.