RINOS

    Some idiot at work keeps tuning the TV in the breakroom to CNN so everytime I go in there to top off my water I have no choice but to listen to the drivel that comes from there.  Two days ago (sorry for the delay on my posting...) I caught part of an interview with Dede Scozzafava.  The caption below her says "GOP strips Scozzafava of her leadership role".  Well no duh!  The woman endorsed the Democrat canidate!  Why shouldn't she be stripped of her leadership role? 

And then the anchor asked her if there would be a place for moderates in the upcoming 2010 elections...  Hello!  This woman is pro choice, pro taxes, pro card check, pro union, pro government run health care.  In what way is she a moderate?  I get so tired of liberals calling other liberals "moderates".  Grow a pair and admit you're a liberal and that anyone who believes most of the things you believe is not a "moderate" but just as much of a liberal as you are....

I caught a lot of flak for writing this back a few weeks ago

Moderates won;t come back to the ranks of the Republican party because we beg them. They will come back because we look like we are going to win some elections and we make the otther guys look extreme or incompetent

well, lookie here!

State of the Union: Powell 'concerned' about Obama's agenda

WASHINGTON (CNN) – In a wide-ranging interview set to air Sunday on CNN's State of the Union, one of President Barack Obama's most prominent Republican supporters says he is 'concerned' about the new president's ambitious agenda and the high price tags accompanying many of Obama's initiatives.

 

"I'm a little concerned," former Secretary of State Colin Powell says. "I'm concerned at the number of programs that are being presented, the bills associated with these programs and the additional government that will be needed to execute them."

Powell also seems to sound a note of warning to the young president.

"I think one of the cautions that has to be given to the president — and I've talked to some of his people about this — is that you can't have so many things on the table that you can't absorb it all. And we can't pay for it all."

With all due respect to the General, perhaps he ought to have read my stuff and realized that Obama and company were going to create a federal deficit of galatic proportions. It wasn't like some mysterious military secret to figure out, please.

But then again, like I said.

If Powell was convinced that the GOP couldn't mount a comeback he wouldn't leave the door open to come back in.  A general always thinks strategically

I'm always willing to let people back into the church after they leave, so no real hard feelings. (What Governor Palin thinks, well, it's up to her). But once again, I feel like Panasonic 

First, a big shout out to my buds @ The New York Times. While the "Paper of Record" chose not to use my name or the name of RedState's Moe Lane we were both quoted verbatim as the authoriative voice on what ought to be done about the "Cap & Tr8-ors"

Thanks for giving this a wider audience

 "I don't think one can minimize why this was a truly hideous vote for those eight folks," a commentator on the conservative blog the "Next Right" wrote. "Here we had a chance to derail the Obama socialism train and restore the Republican party to policy relevance, and these guys bailed out so they could get a nice mention in the NY Times."

Guess it still feels like John Mellencamp sang in "Small Town" "hey, look at who's in the big town"

I digress

Here's the choice for the Cap &Tr8-ors

former Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Joe Lieberman has come out against Obama's "public option" health care scheme.

“If we create a public option, the public is going to end up paying for it,” Lieberman said following an hour-long confab with public-health experts at the Ashmun Street community center of the Monterey Homes public housing complex. “That’s a cost we can’t take on"

I've disagreed with Joe frequently, but on this one he is clearly part of the "reality-based community".  Evidently "Countrywide Kent" Conrad is also not sipping the public option kool aid either.

So, here's the deal for Rep. Bono Mack, Castle, Kirk, Lance, LoBiondo, Reichert and Smith (I omitted McHugh on purpose; he's already been bought).

 You can go with Joe Lieberman and publicly break with the central element of Obamacare.  

Or you can get sent to the ice floe.

Choose Wisely. (if you you choose poorly, this will do you more good than Pac $$ and endorsements)

Yesterday was a slow day at the office, so I spent a lot of time on the I-phone seeing if we could actually give the lefties a shiner by defeating their "cap and trade" fiasco.

Then I got home, saw the result, and traded e-mails with various people in the "movement" The kindest response to the eight turncoats that enabled Waxman-Markey to pass was roughly along these lines

I don't think one can minimize why this was a truly hideous vote for those eight folks. Here we had a chance to derail the Obama socialism train and restore the Republican party to policy relevance, and these guys bailed out so they could get a nice mention in the NY Times tomorrow. Swell.  Even the White House is giving up on the "global warming" issue and you guys sign up for the mission.  Putzes,

The immediate response that I had was that the kindest thing to do to these "fredos" was to throw them out on an ice floe with the polar bears. And others were along those lines. Or at least, shut off their campaign money, demand retirements, or find primary challengers  But that's my spleen talking. Today my brain took over.

No. it's time for a more "reasonable" approach.

See we now have an even more serious threat to the future of the Republic, and that would be a socialized health care system. I'll let John Hinderaker explain.

One of my law partners asked me yesterday which of the Democrats' current initiatives is worse, the tax on carbon or the health care "public option," otherwise known as socialized medicine. I replied unhesitatingly that socialized medicine is much worse. Carbon tax-and-trade can rather easily be repealed once people realize what a dumb idea it is. However, once our health care system has been destroyed and replaced with "single payer" socialized medicine, there is no going back

We need to explain to the Octofail Republicans that there is only one way out of the flaming pit they have dug for themselves. They need to become hard line zealots against the "public option" health care "reform".

And not milquetoast statements and a quiet vote "nay" on final passage. I mean going medieval on the whole concept 24/7/365. I mean like righteous 100 decible opposition. I mean like Rudy Giuliani vs. squeegee men or Michael Moore v. the Hometown Buffett bad.

Anything less, and we re-send the pink slips with no remorse and no reconsideration.

Now for our political geniuses.  First off, let's dispense with the "socially liberal, fiscally conservative" canard here. This was a statist bill from the word go and there wasn't a libertarian idea within the same zip code. It was simply an energy tax.  Ok if you want to keep the government out of my bedroom. How about letting people afford to heat their bedrooms? 

Second, this bill is going to appeal to the vocal but few Saab Socialists who put the environment ahead of the economy. It is going to be painfully unpopular with blue collar America. Maybe Dave Reichert's uber green district will like it; but if Mark Kirk or Mike Castle think this isn't going to backfire on them big time in Rockford and New Castle they are going to find the Democrats whacking them with their own bill next November.

And please explain Mary Bono Mack.  Both her and the lame hubby from SW FL are painful underachievers, proving surnames don't equal leadership. (Something we know well in CT!)

So that's the offer.  Back before he went girlie man in Sacramento Arnold Scharzenegger told John Connor this

Come with me if you want to live

Well, "Cap and Tr8-ors".....either make sure Obama's health care reform fails...or

Hasta la vista, baby!

An old friend on mine just got remarried--for the third time. She is drunk with love, text messaging "I miss you" when her new husband is absent for a mere matter of hours. Its terribly amusing, but also a little sad--I remember this same behavior with both ex-husbands. One day she'll walk into the bedroom and see his socks lying on the floor where he dropped them, and the bliss will be replaced with a flash of anger and resentment. The honeymoon will be over.

Maureen Dowd found some socks on the floor.

In one of his disturbing spells of passivity, President Obama decided not to fight Congress and live up to his own no-earmark pledge from the campaign.

He’s been lecturing us on the need to prune away frills while the economy fizzles. He was slated to make a speech on “wasteful spending” on Wednesday.

“You know, there are times where you can afford to redecorate your house and there are times where you need to focus on rebuilding its foundation,” he said recently about the “hard choices” we must make. Yet he did not ask Congress to sacrifice and make hard choices; he let it do a lot of frivolous redecorating in its budget. ...

Blame it on the stars, Rahm, or on old business. But as Shakespeare wrote in “Lear”: “This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune — often the surfeits of our own behavior — we make guilty of our own disasters, the sun, the moon, and the stars.”

Maureen is not the only one seeing the full bloom of love wilting under the weight of day to day living with the Obama administration. Jennifer Rubin, in a Pajamas Media post, lists the shocked and appalled Chris Buckley, David Brooks, David Gergen and Marty Peretz, as disappointed former lovers.

Some will no doubt chortle over the comeuppance of these media know-it-alls, but in some ways they are ahead of many conservatives who keep insisting that Barry is some evil genius with a plan. More on that later...

Its fairly clear to me that Barack Obama thinks there is one set of rules for George W. Bush, and another set of rules for him. Perhaps its because the mommy-media always picked up his socks for him, but whatever the reason, he seems to think that he can forever point the finger at his predecessor or Congress and safely maintain an Olympian detachment and a contrived centrist image. What was generally perceived as a beginner's mistake--the delegation of the stimulus bill creation to Nancy Pelosi, is more recently being recognized as a pattern--let Nancy do the left-wing dirty work to keep Barry's hands clean.

Yet as these pundit complaints reveal, those watching closely are not fooled, and those not watching closely will inevitably ignore such subtle distinctions and lay the blame or credit squarely at the feet of the administration. The Democrat brain trust seem to think that Obama has some sort of Reaganesque teflon suit he can wear to deflect criticism, and blissfully unaware that the teflon was a result of popular policies that actually succeeded. Reagan's landslide reelection could best be summarized by a question he asked in 1980 and then again in 1984--"...are you better off than you were four years ago?" Having done the big things right, the people weren't much interested in the day-to-day ticky-tack.

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With a no confidence vote by the financial markets, the moral hazard of Obama's mortgage rescue plan, increasing unemployment and generally no light at the end of the tunnel, its a stretch to claim that Obama is doing the "big things right". Obama's wrong track numbers are in the red zone, and only an "improvement" relative to the spike in October during the Lehman Bros. debacle. Pollster.com aggregates the polls for an average wrong track number of 59%.

Historically wrong track numbers this high have always signaled an election loss for the incumbent during an election year. Clinton had numbers like this in 1994 when Republicans won 54 seats in the House,12 governorships and 20 state legislatures. It also marked the year that Clinton hired Dick Morris and decided to govern with Republicans instead of minority Democrats.

Currently the administration has some cover as there is still a substantial number of wrong-trackers who blame the Bush administration for the current woes, but both time and the growing disillusionment of the politically informed is going to erode that bulwark, and faster than anyone might expect. Truman's famous "The buck stops here" was less an acceptance of responsibility than a simple acknowledgment of the realities of the presidency.

There is no public consensus accepting the Democrat rhetoric that low taxes caused the current economic nightmare, which is simply counter-intuitive to most people. By contrast, the Republican narrative about how Dodd and Franks forced the banks into making bad loans is entirely plausible. Democrats and Republicans might have differing tolerance for corruption, but both have no trouble acknowledging its existence.

Sky-is-falling conservatives need to recognize the relative contributions of various environmental factors in determining the future political landscape. Only eight years after Nixon resigned, and party affiliation dropped to its nadir, Reagan entered the oval office with a Republican majority in the Senate. 2010 and 2012 could be significantly more impressive than that.

The Democrats have laid the groundwork for an ignominious defeat, but the scale of that defeat is entirely in the hands of conservatives who have an enormous amount of work to do to articulate a modern political program that borrows the best from the past, trashes the worst, and adapts to current issues like the environment, immigration, corporate responsibility, etc...

Yesterday I had lunch with some friends who recounted to me the story of an old neighbor who had built a successful business, sold it for 15 million and then preceded to lose it all--to the point that he was living with his adult children. Sounds terrible doesn't it, but this is American, land of the second acts. The same man ran across an interesting piece of exercise equipment at a trade show, and somehow managed to raise a quarter million to buy the rights. That piece of exercise equipment because the Healthrider--a company he sold for 100 million.

Failure always hurts, but its often a remarkable opportunity to move forward unshackled of the necessity to protect what you have. Republicans don't have to play defense anymore and can build a better future from the lessons learned from the past.

This post is intended to push forward on the countless "What Republicans should do" posts that are flying around. Whether you are conservative, moderate, Main Street, Libertarian, NeoCon, SoCon, or WhateverCon is irrelevant because we are all Republicans. Christine Todd Whitman and Robert Bostick <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/13/AR2008111303347_pf.html">argue</a> we need to divorce the religious right. Ignoring that it is the SoCon's that helped deliver most of our political wins in the last 20 years. The Nuge and countless others say we need to go <a href="http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=29458">RINO hunting</a>. Ted my sentiments are with you but unfortunately we need the moderates for a winning coalition. So instead of blaming this wing or that wing of our Party for our recent losses we need to define what it means to be a Republican and leave the rest to the rubber chicken circuit. What am I talking about? Open Hand issues and Closed Hand issues.

This concept is not new but needs to be applied to the GOP. We need Closed Hand issues that we all agree on. Ones that define Republicans. That are bedrock, firm, and ones that we will "go to the mattresses" for. We have to unite and not compromise on the issues of fiscal conservatism, limited government, lower taxes, national defense, a constructivist judicial system, and individual freedom.

In the Open Hand we have the issues that we can debate amongst our selves but are secondary issues and should not divide us. In particular I warn against becoming a single-issue Republican. These issues include gun control, abortion, health care reform, family values, capital punishment etc. These are the issues that are too highly debated on a personal level. If the Republican party sticks to the Closed Hand issues the Open Hand issues will take care of themselves.

This is the only way we will become the Big Tent party we all talk about and it is the only way we get back in the majority.

I am lucky enough to have been able to vote for Ronald Reagan when he ran as President.  In fact, it was the first Presidential election in which I was old enough to vote and he was the very first President I voted for.

I was raised in a conservative family with strong conservative values--both parents had college degrees (at the time my father had his first of many PhD's), education was a MUST, we saved, my mother stayed home with us until we went to school and then she worked part time.  She was also responsible for our cultural and religious extra-curricular activities while daddy was responsible for our sports activities.  Hard work was rewarded with privileges, not toys and laziness, disrespect and irresponsibility were simply not tolerated.  I grew up in an era when children were kicked out of their houses around 8:00 am during the summer and told not to come home until lunch; after lunch, it was back outside until the street lights came on.  The entire neighborhood watched out for each other's children and if you got into trouble at a friend's house, your mother knew about it before you even came close to being home. Sunday Mass was MANDATORY and you dressed appropriately and respectfully. You learned what soap tasted like if you decided to try out your swearing capabilities. There was one TV in the house and the program lineup was decided by daddy.  Hence, my Star Trek addiction (it was on opposite the Flinstones at that time). Bedtimes were enforced, girls didn't call boys, and the phone better not ring after 8:00 pm unless it was a true emergency. We saved money for family vacations, there was one credit card and it was kept clear for emergency use only. We were taught the police were our friends and you ALWAYS stood for a member of the military.  From the time we could focus, we were plopped in front of the tv for each and every rocket launch and the flag was proudly flown from our home. Holidays centered around their meanings rather than the cost and number of gifts and our elders were very much respected.

Family vacations were rarely to anyplace other than the grandparents homes.  And such grandparents I had! One set of great-grandparents had actually pioneered parts of Colorado and Oklahome in covered wagons. They owned a small "farm" and were entirely self-sustaining.  Gruesome child that I was, I thoroughly enjoyed watching Grandpa execute chickens and ducks for dinner.  The pies my grandmother made were famous city-wide and she made a small contribution toward the family coffers selling her pies to the mom and pop restaurants in this small town. They raised six children in a sod hut; losing one in adulthood to a fire. To get a doctor, my grandmother had to literally run to town, find the doctor and go back to the homestead. They didn't have stores to buy sheets and such; quilting bees were the norm.  I have two of her quilts made into wall hangings for all to see their beauty. She emmigrated from Ireland and he was the son of German immigrants.

Another set of grandparents homesteaded the Idaho/Utah area.  She was a British immigrant whose father was a gravedigger in England and the children played among the headstones.  The highpoint of their childhood was going to the sea and eating ice cream.  She was an exceptionally cheerful woman who worked magic with a crochet hook or knitting needles.  She taught us how to can, preserve and store food.  My memories of my grandfather aren't so keen as he always seemed to be in the background. To her dying day, she had her afternoon tea.  Her three children were successes in their own rights, my father being the only son.

Those times are gone. The values have long been since relegated to the dustbins of obscurity as old fashioned and not relevant.

However.  These are the values of conservatives.  Self-sufficiency.  Using resources responsibly.  Helping each other out in time of need.  Saving for a rainy day.  Legal immigration and assimilation. Giving up native languages for English. Pride in God, country and self, in that order. Faith. Small government who trusted its citizens to pretty much govern themselves, stepping in only when necessary. Military service. Raising families to be productive citizens rather than lazy layabouts expecting everything to be handed to them.

These people were the backbone of the country and the backbone of the conservative base. They may have registered as Democrats.  They may have been Republicans. Either way, the values and beliefs were strong.

These values no longer define conservatism. Conservatism is used as an epithet these days, signifying you're hopelessly behind the times. God and Faith have been relegated to second class status, while the almighty dollar and power take their places.

Frankly, I'm tired of it.  I have my own blog.  Those who read my blog know I hold nothing back. I'm tired of what passes for the Republican party these days, which is nothing more than socialist lite. I'm tired of working my behind off to have my taxes taken (a nice form of armed robbery) to support the most ludicrous of leftist/liberal ideas and schemes, without asking me what I wish to support, whether it be policies or charities. I don't like my money being taken to support lunatic schemes such as the "greening" of the world, worshiping at the altar of Al Gore and designed to take my choice away regarding everything from what I put into my gas tank to what kind of light bulbs I use. Policies designed to siphon off my funds to support failed theories and false science which has been debunked by reputable research--yet the RNC panders to in order to get votes. Policies designed to drive up prices on everything from gas prices to the food on my table. Policies designed to ravage land and starve worldwide populations. Policies based upon the ravings of a lunatic and his followers.

I'm tired of the RNC pandering to the lobbies for illegal aliens and refusing to enforce existing laws against these invaders while continuing to try to find ways to shove anmnesty down my throat. I'm tired of the cowardice of the RNC in capitulating to the appeasement mentality of islamists demanding special accomodations for footbaths, prayer rooms and times, cafeterias and facility use times at publicly funded schools and universities, using my tax dollars, while my own Judeo-Christian values and needs are prohibited because of the "separation of church and state". I'm tired of the RNC appeasing a small percentage of the population's sexual issues by allowing them to force their views on my family through things like special sex ed classes and accomodation of Gay Pride parades and Folsom Street Fair. I'm tired of traitors and seditionists being allowed to retain their congressional seats rather than the RNC enforcing the laws against such behavior and prosecuting these criminals. I'm tired of the RNC becoming a yellow-belly, spineless wimp in the face of the liberal lunacy. I'm tired of the RNC asking me for money to support candidates who waffle, spin, refuse to take a stand and are nothing more than democrat lite, while refusing to provide us true conservative candidates.

I'm plain tired of the RNC.  I will stay registered Republican just long enough to get through this election; then I'm registering no party.  I will not continue to contribute to or support any candidate run by a party I no longer recognize and a party who insists on ignoring the voices of the people.

Anyone with me?