Lindsey Graham

With the notable exception of John McCain, the national Patriot movement has had significant results backing strong Constitutional Conservatives. Rinos continue to pay the price again, with that one notable exception.

To our Arizona friends. I hope you chose wisely. I can’t help thinking that people like Lindsey Graham and John McCain will revert to type. More than willing to sell out his principles, McCain is perfectly capable of secret deals with the DeMarxists, as is Graham. We have no choice but to watch them like hawks and force them to behave.

Hey! Anybody out there want to lay any bets on how long it’s going to take our boy John to revert to type? I say one week. But he has talked a hell of a tough game on the border and illegals, since he had his border epiphany.

Dick Morris is openly calling for both the House and the Senate to change hands in an historic repudiation of the leftward movement of our government. Yes, the people do have a voice in our system and they are making their voices heard in historic numbers.

The grim statistics that are coming out of the economy pretty much say it all. Record mortgage filings, the lowest real estate sales in fifteen years. We lost 500,000 jobs last month, companies are afraid to hire and investment is virtually frozen.

All political prognosticators are calling for a Republican sweep of the House. I think that’s great, and I say let’s take the damned Senate too. While we’re doing that, let’s pray to God for the wisdom to do this right.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

Arizona has proven itself to be a pretty sane place. I hope that holds true through the primary election for the Senate race between JD Hayworth and John McCain.

I’d like to hope that Arizona would have better sense than to fall for McCain’s chameleon-like transformation into a closed borders, anti-illegal alien guy. Or, that along with people like the ever-detestable Lindsey Graham, he was perfectly willing to sell the American people down the road with his carbon tax scheme.

It cost twenty million dollars of McCain money to get the Senator this far. He did his best to destroy JD Hayworth with Arizona voters. What was disappointing was the support that McCain got from the Old Guard Republican Party back in the beltway. They were the same ones who backed McCain for President. McCain could prove to be a very negative factor in the US Senate. He simply cannot be trusted not to immediately revert to type once re-elected. Millions of Patriots have made it abundantly clear that we do not want business as usual from our elected representatives.

Political prognosticators from both ends of the spectrum are calling for what may be a political repudiation of historical proportions, with estimates north of fifty seats that could be lost by the DeMarxists in November. Further, there are some who are now openly speculating on the real possibility that the Senate could be lost to the Conservative Republican revolution as well.

McCain just cannot be trusted. He’s proven too many times that he’s willing to throw party and principles away. From the Gang of Fourteen to his willingness to sell us out on immigration… proof that he cannot be trusted is out there in abundance.

If you live in Arizona, please get to the polls and vote today. Gather your friends and family and get them to the polls.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

Despite the DeMarxists headlong rush to oblivion in November, we cannot count on our Republican leadership not to blow it. They need to show something that has been sadly missing thus far, in my opinion… leadership.

To date, they’ve failed in the first big test of whether they have the intestinal fortitude to be the majority in 2011. Elena Kagan should have been stonewalled out the gate. She has zero qualification for the Supreme Court. She’s an Obama creation. A political hack. A statist mouthpiece.

Did the Republican leadership stand as one and say ‘hell no’? Of course not. They went immediately into accommodation mode, giving Kagan all the wiggle room she needed to play cutesy games and not give one substantive answer to any of the really weak-kneed, almost pandering, questions by the committee. They’ve displayed themselves as indecisive and fragmented, when they should show the American Patriots, whose favor they curry, that they can stand for what we believe in.

Conservative opinion was unmistakeably against Elena Kagan’s appointment. We told the leadership from the outset that we wanted her appointment filibustered. There were comments such as ‘Obama deserves his appointments’. Flashback to Lindsey (I’ll go which ever way the wind blows) Gramnesty… and the Sotomayor hearings. As I recall, the nomination proceedings were scarcely under way and Graham was telling her, in front of the open hearing, that she ‘is going to be confirmed’. That’s enough to make a skunk gag. Sotomayor is far to left of anyone on the Court, and Kagan is to the left of her.

Somehow, the Republicans have gotten the idea that if we don’t make nice with the DeMarxist nominees, we can’t get our own through when the time comes. In the Marine Corps we’d call it ‘cowardice in the face of the enemy’. In the case of the so-called Republican leadership, it’s ‘folding before the enemy is engaged’.

I see that John McCain has come to the party late… a little like his new-found religion on illegal amnesty and border security. The point is that if the Republicans can’t show leadership on this, can we trust them to lead? We still remember, all too well, the pathetic Republican performance of the Bush years. It’s one of the reasons incumbents have been dropping like flies. There will be more!

You cannot expect us to get behind an incoherent and fragmented message. We’ve been there and done that. There’s too much at risk this time. We have to stop and derail this DeMarxist rush to tyranny at any cost, and we have to do it now! Here is a golden opportunity for the Republicans to articulate a clear, simple message. We have to return to the Reagan model. The conservative message resonates every time that it’s clearly defined… and every time it’s followed, it’s a success.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

John ‘Swiftboat’ Kerry. The man who perjured himself in front of Congress to sell out his brothers in arms? That John Kerry? Anything Kerry’s involved with can’t help but be just terrific for the country, right?

Then there’s Joe Lieberman. I really admire Lieberman’s unwavering support of the war against terrorism and his steadfast support of the State of Israel. So much so that I could almost forget how far left Joe Lieberman really is… almost. Only a liberal could have put forth a bill like this.

Then we come to the final member of the triumvirate, who did not have much input with the language of the bill but who has since identified himself with it, Lindsey Graham. Now, Graham may not have had any say in this legislation, but it points out exactly why Graham should go the way of Bob Bennett.

From Left: Graham, Lieberman, Kerry.

This ‘new’ climate legislation is being called dead on arrival this year by some of the leadership on both sides. It still looks as though the intrepid trio will attempt to move it forward anyhow. The bill itself is a job and economy killer as all such legislation is. It will put considerable burdens on 2,700 manufacturing and power generators by requiring a 17% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. The economy is still staggering under the cumulative effects of two years of severe recession. Any impediment to business and commerce will be magnified.

Additional requirements, burdens and taxes will be placed on offshore oil and gas drilling operations. It does, however, strip the EPA’s ability to regulate carbon emissions, which would be an excellent idea if it weren’t couched in this larger bill. This bill is certain to be strongly resisted by Republicans, but there are many of the left’s extreme environmental wing nuts who aren’t a bit happy with the bill’s provisions, such as billions of dollars for ‘clean coal’ and offshore drilling and exploration. There are also provisions for nuclear power. These last items are of course sops for Republican support, which is likely to be scarce.

It is an ill-conceived piece of legislation at an even more inopportune time and, fortunately for us, looks unlikely to see the light of day.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

I wish someone would tell me why this character should have a single Republican member of Congress listen to him, much less be influenced by a single word emanating from his smarmy mouth. In his latest essay in treacherous gum beating he’s let it be known that he’ll play deal maker on Guantanamo Bay.

Lindsey Graham

On Sunday, this cretin actually had the chutzpah to tell the White House that he would work to convince Republicans to ‘go along with closing Guantanamo Bay’, if the President reverses his intention of trying high-profile terrorists on continental U.S. soil.

Graham, ever anxious to ingratiate himself with the administration and bolster his RINO credentials, came in a little late on this one though, since public rage over the proposed trials has all but forced Obama to go back to Guantanamo and military tribunals… aside from the fact that in all likelihood he would be unable to garner support from the Republican membership, other than perhaps a few like-minded RINOs.

Lindsey Graham is the poster child for everything that is anathema to Conservative Republicans and most Independents as well. With an oily, slithering ‘let’s make a deal’ attitude with very little principled moral compass behind him, Graham has made a career thumbing his nose at his Conservative brethren. Time after time ingratiating himself with liberals and advancing their agenda in the face of opposition from his ‘own’ party, continually aligning himself with other liberal (moderate) elements in the Republican party and using the ‘mantle’ of Republican for political cover. So much so that he has been censured by the Conservative-loyal Republican party in his own home state, “for many of the positions he has taken that do not represent the people of South Carolina”.

Among the more spectacular buffoonery Graham has pulled was to align himself with the treasonous John (Swiftboat) Kerry, to push for the economy and back-breaking Cap and Trade legislation so sought after by the leftist Obama administration. Graham is another one who has bought into the fakery and faux secular religion of global warming / climate change.

Graham is also remembered for memberships in both the gang of ten and the gang of fourteen with that great thumb-in-the-eye RINO John McCain, thwarting the aims of their own party leadership time after time and giving victory to opponents. Does anybody remember Graham supporting TARP? I do. His pro illegal alien stance is also another in his long list of perfidy. The party can do nothing finer than to isolate this snake oil vendor, and all like him, until they can be voted out of office.

The vote on health care in the House is just around the corner. It’s time to make our displeasure with the authoritarian aims of the White House and the Democrat House felt in no uncertain terms again. It seems like this last year has been a progression from one desperate struggle to another and it isn’t over yet. Not by a long shot. Stand up and be heard.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

On one side we have the party Conservatives. On the other we have the RINOs. You’ll notice there is no middle category here. I think that all but the densest, tunnel-visioned and hide-bound ‘old guard’ Republicans have figured out that the Patriot Movement (what they and the lame-stream press love to call ‘the Tea Baggers’) is no flash in the pan, and has just grown stronger despite the worst the leftist press and the Democrat spin machine (and some Republicans) could do to denigrate it and drive wedges into it. Their breathless characterization of a third party fell flatter than last week’s beltway champagne.

It is, by any measure, the new voice of the Republican party and, in point of fact, is not being controlled by the Party but is pulling the party along behind it. The new Conservative Republican party has a bright future, with a highly motivated and self-aware membership made up of solid conservative patriots who are determined that the principles of freedom that make this country great will be upheld.

President Reagan unknowingly describes the aims of the Patriot Movement:

We have come very close to losing our country. We might yet. The forces of freedom have been marshaled to stop the march to totalitarianism none too soon. We have some really promising rising stars in the party. Wholesome, grounded Conservatives like Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan, who single-handedly carved President Obama’s arguments to shreds at the health care summit. We have Michael Pence, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Michelle Bachmann and others.

Then we have the RINOs. There is really no room for these people in our party going forward, their names are familiar to us all and the damage they have caused well known. Several are facing primary challenges as we speak, others will retire rather than face the just retribution of their constituents. Those who are not up for election this cycle such as Lindsey Graham (amnesty, green jobs, carbon tax) will be voted out next time around. John McCain faces a strong challenge in Arizona and none to soon. After all the damaging and totally wrong-headed stuff he has signed off on you’d think he’d learn. Now he’s out to try and regulate the vitamin and food supplement industry so that the government can destroy more private business. Maine’s Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins are two more that need to go.

The Democrat party is not the party of my grandparents, or my parents for that matter. It is a party of committed ideologues run by Leftists, Progressives, Marxists, Communists (name your poison), whose only goal is to fundamentally change this country into that of a socio-Marxist state. There are some principled people left in the party, albeit isolated and powerless. The very nature of the party mission does not permit dissent nor foster independent thinking or opinions. Those who do not march in lockstep with the leadership are treated as outcasts, in some instances given the treatment that resulted in Senator Joseph Lieberman leaving the party.

This is the face of the enemy. We have to win. There is no option.

This is why a new, vital Conservative Republican party is being forged.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

Politico had an article today analyzing the odd friendship between Lindsey Graham and Rahm Emanuel.

In truth it's not that odd.  Lindsey Graham is a lib despite the 'R' annotation.

I can't leave this Lindsey Graham story alone.  It's not just that the free market, limited government, social tolerance voters (a swing vote that accounts for up to 20% of the electorate) deserves more respect from the Republican Party - it does - but that Lindsey Graham and many other Republicans don't seem to realize the position of weakness they are in.  Consider...

Lindsey Graham, while announcing that "We are not going to build a party around libertarian ideas", said...

“I’m a winner, pal,” Graham [said] ... “Winning matters to me. If it doesn’t matter to you, there’s the exit sign.” [...] “I’m not going to give this party over to people who can’t win,” Graham responded.

But the Republican Party is already controlled by people who can't win.

The decline in Republican Party affiliation among Americans in recent years is well documented, but a Gallup analysis now shows that this movement away from the GOP has occurred among nearly every major demographic subgroup. [...] By the end of 2008, the party had its worst positioning against the Democrats in nearly two decades.

While it is important to be flexible enough to win elections in more States, the solution to the Republican Party problem is not "be more vague, so that you don't alienate people".

As for Lindsey Graham: It's hard to see any coherent vision from Sen. Graham beyond 'power and perks'.  Republicans need to find out exactly what it is Sen. Graham is trying to "win".  He may have won his own election, but that only makes him a leader in the downward spiral of the Republican Party.

If the discussion of the range of responses to the banking crisis on This Week today is any indication, we are truly living in a topsy-turvy world.

Stephanopolous leads with a clip of President Obama addressing a question about the nationalization approach taken by Sweden to resolve a mortgage bubble driven financial crisis in 1991-1992.

Barack Obama:

Sweden has a different set of cultures in terms of how the government relates to markets. And America's different. We want to retain a strong sense of private capital fulfilling the core investment needs of this country.

Lindsey Graham:

I think if you put most of our major banks under a 'stress test,' they're going to fail...

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.   

To me banking and housing are the root cause of this problem. Government is going to have to...I would not take off [the table] the idea of nationalizing the banks.

Chuck Schumer:

I would not be for nationalizing. I think government's not good at making these decisions as to who gets loans, how this happens...

GOP Rep. Peter King joined Sen. Graham in speaking in favor of nationalizing some banks. Only Rep. Maxine Waters remained true to form. She, of course, has no fear of a government-based solution.

Needless to say, Schumer's remarks are disingenuous in the extreme. First, no one is talking about the government running the banks long-term and making "decisions as to who get loans", etc. Nationalization is merely a mechanism for an orderly disentanglement of failed banks, not dissimilar except in scale from what the FDIC does regularly. Second, Sen Schumer as usual neglects to mention that he is wholly a creature of the New York financial services industry. Schumer's opposition to nationalization is completely self-serving since step one of nationalization would be to wipeout the shareholders (his campaign contributors) and fire the executives (his friends) of any bank found to be insolvent.

On a purely partisan basis bankrupting Schumer's financial base would be good for the GOP since Schumer's ability to bring Wall Street money to the Democratic Party is a major if under publicized reason for his party's resurgence.

As a matter of policy, I agree with Sen. Graham that some of our major banks are indeed insolvent; their liabilities exceed their assets. It is only by clinging to the fiction that the face value of their toxic assets have any bearing on reality that these institutions can present a balance sheet that is not dripping red ink. As long as they insist on carrying on with that charade they will not have real assets to lend and that will mean the American economy will lack a robust financial intermediation function.

So here we are in a topsy-turvy world where within days of passing the gargantuan stimulus bill Democrats are lining up to preserve the zombie banks and Republicans are calling however modestly at this point for their nationalization. What a world!