Mitch McConnell

It’s really too bad. All it would have taken was one Republican leader to step up and throw this whole mess back in Barack Hussein Obama’s face, where it belonged in the first place. Just one leader with some testosterone. Instead, we get the ‘lets make a deal’ crew all over again.

We know that Congress is being bombarded by deluges of angry patriots, voicing their displeasure with John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. Yesterday, the Annoyed One stormed out of a meeting with the Republican leadership, telling them ‘not to call his bluff’… which, of course, is exactly what they should do.

Good gravy, you’d think they’d have figured it out by now. It’s sort of like this. Where goeth the Tea Party Patriots, so goeth the nation. I don’t think that that’s much of an exaggeration either. They would never have attained the majority in the House without what we did to put them there.

Therein, as they say, lies the rub. No matter what sort of cockamamie sell-out scheme these two timid creatures come up with, there are at least one hundred Representatives who have stated unequivocally that they will not vote for any debt increase under any circumstances.

Would somebody please tell me why anyone would want to give the Marxists of Barack Obama’s regime one more dime to pee away, pumping up unions and union jobs, on more bureaucrats and regulation, and more poison and venom to be pumped into the economy?

To the Republican leadership… If you blink on this one you’re gone and so is your Party. You will be consumed in the fire of the Patriot Movement. This is your defining moment… What’s it to be?

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2011

Just had that feeling… I wrote about it yesterday… I’ve learned to trust my inner genie. The Senate Republicans have attempted to usurp the more than 70% of the American people and the Republican dominated House, whose stubborn refusal to cave to the pressure of the Republican establishment and do another sell-out compromise with the statists of the Obama regime has resulted in Mitch McConnell’s so called last ditch ‘backup plan’.

Its brilliance lies in its simplistic stupidity… Let Obama set his own debt ceiling. Absolute genius. That’s like giving a junkie the deed to an opium factory. Mitch’s RINO reasoning goeth thusly… If we let Obama raise his own debt limit, all the little people out there will see what a baad man Obama really is and will flock to the squishy Republican ‘moderation’ zone.

I like what Erick Erickson of Redstate called it… ‘the Pontius Pilate Pass the Buck Act of 2011′. That pretty well sums it up for me, too. I knew John Boehner was involved here as well, with his comment ‘We should have a backup plan’. Yeah, John… the backup plan is to say no!

In the meantime, while these two are bleating about ‘backup this and backup that’, ‘Barack the Destroyer’ is out there lying through his eyeteeth, doing his best to panic and stampede the nation’s seniors, saying that he didn’t know if there would be money in the coffers for Social Security and disability checks. That’s a lie in and of itself. Checks to Social Security and disability recipients are not, and never were, in danger. Neither are payments to the military.

Force this bunch of clowns back on the reservation and tell them this is it. No deals on the debt limit!

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2011

I sincerely hope that’s not what’s going on, but hope is a thin thread on which to hang the survival of our representative republican form of government. Uh, to those brain-lesioned ‘progressives’ out there… we do not, as the Lame Stream Press is so fond of stating, live in a democracy. True democracies are nut houses… a little like the current administration. But then, the DeMarxist party has been a squirrel cage for a long time.

It took a national malaise, coupled by an almost historical disregard of facts by adults in this nation who should have known better, to bring us to this pass in which our nation at present finds itself.

With regard to the issue of the debt ceiling. I’m of the firm belief that this is where we have to make our stand. Either this leadership, this Republican Congress, recognizes that we simply cannot do it, we can’t spend more!, or else…

Boehner’s bold statement saying that we won’t allow one dollar in spending without a dollar in spending cuts… What!? Uh, John. Don’t you think that’s a little ‘harsh’? After all, we’re only in the hole by 14 or 15 trillion dollars. Good gravy! What the hell does it take to get through to these knotheads?

And now… wait until you hear this… Mitch McConnell, arch RINO, is calling for la grande accorde. “Why, it’s time for both sides to come together in the ‘great deal’.” Why do I sense McCain in this too… Or maybe he’s too busy pushing illegal alien amnesty.

I don’t know about you, but somehow I don’t see such a liaison as a happy ending for us… the American patriot, citizen and taxpayer. I, for one, am sick to death of their stupid games. One can only assume they haven’t gotten the message.

We get a wide variety of comments here, some from quite surprising sources. I’m not in the poll or prediction business, but we do get a pretty good feel for the mood of the country on issues. I’m here to tell you that nothing has changed. The anger is still boiling just below the surface… and the undeniable truth is in front of each and every citizen’s nose every time they have to buy gas or go to the grocery store. Every time I see a one dollar and sixty cent item selling for close to four dollars, I think of who and what is responsible… and I’m not alone.

This 2012 election is ours to lose. What really scares me is that the Republicans are plenty stupid enough to lose it for us.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2011

My article of Monday the 18th of October created a bit of a tempest. I’ve never had an article pulled on a Conservative site before. I’ve been tossed off of a couple of hard lefty sites, but that’s usually just funny.

I used to do a daily column on a really hard lefty site… I was astounded that they would publish my Conservative views. We were on there for about six months before someone on their editorial board came up for air long enough to realize that they were featuring a conservative op-ed every day, when they dropped us. We’ve been accidentally picked up by the Huffington Post once or twice too, that’s pretty hilarious.

The incident on Monday occurred on a site belonging to a writer and patriot I admire. One of his editorial staff took umbrage at my endorsement of a write-in candidate for Lieutenant Governor. Ok, I think I get the idea. We support and elect a liberal RINO Republican to keep from inviting Jerry Brown light into the state political arena, Gavin Newsom.

Fresh from destroying San Francisco, much the same way Jerry Brown destroyed Oakland as Mayor there, Newsom really wants to be Lieutenant Governor. He’d really love to have all those lovely Sacramento dollars to play with. There’s no situation out there that Newsom can’t make worse.

Yes, I agree. Newsom should never be allowed anywhere near Sacramento. But that doesn’t change a darn thing about what I think about Abel Maldonado. Meg had better be keeping a close eye on Mr. Maldonado should she be elected, as I feel confident she will be.

It doesn’t change a thing about the California or the National Republican Parties continually fostering candidates that may be able to garner a few marginal votes, but who turn against the party and against the people they are sworn to serve at the first opportunity. Gee, doesn’t that sound just like Abe? Let’s ask good ol’ Abe what his stand on illegal immigration is.

RINOs and other linguine-spined elitist Republicans are hell bent on taking charge of and co-opting the American Patriot Movement. These same establishment types are more trouble than they are worth. Today we have that political accommodation artist extraordinaire, Mitch McConnell, promising to find ways to co-operate with that monster in the White House. Hey, Mitch!! What is it you don’t get about the largest national movement that any of us has ever seen? We don’t want you to accommodate and make deals, period.

There are also, unfortunately, many not necessarily RINO Republicans who cave in to pressure by their peers on both sides of the aisles. These may be really nice folks, but they are not doing the job we sent them to do. We will remove them from office.

We do not wish to co-operate with Marxists or their surrogates. We intend to to defeat them and you, if you stand in the way of our saving this country and bringing it back under the Constitution. Be warned.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

You could tell just as soon as his props started filing out, most likely low-level White House staffers in the obligatory white lab coats left over from the rose garden hoopla a while ago. You could tell by the overbearing look of arrogance on his face. You could tell from the first sentence out of his mouth that there wouldn’t be a word of truth or forthrightness coming out of him.

Rush, Hannity and Levin said much the same thing, that there was not one bit of truth, fact or substance in anything he said. This guy is not really a convincing liar, you’d have to have seriously bought into the whole Obama persona thing to swallow it.

Flashback: A Staffer Hands Out The Props.

In his hubris he demanded an up or down vote on the bill within weeks, indicating use of the reconciliation process for passage without calling it that. Facing uniform opposition from the GOP and not a few Democrats, Obama, like Nancy Pelosi on ABC Sunday, called for loyal Democrats to fall on their swords while acknowledging that the legislation wasn’t very popular, by saying that he ‘didn’t know where it was going politically’. Master of understatement! America overwhelmingly despises this bill and everything to do with it.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that the legislation was vastly unpopular because the American people knew what the bill stood for and didn’t want it. He further said it represented a half a trillion dollars in Medicare cuts and a half a trillion dollars in tax increases. He said that in the first ten years it would create two point five trillion dollars in unfunded debt through new spending. He also made the point that the opposition to the bill was not between the Republicans and the Democrats, it was between the Democrats and the American people. He followed by saying that the price would be paid in November because the Democrats would not have this issue behind them, they would have it in front of them.

The desperation of the Obama administration is palpable. What they and most everyone else has ignored is that with every likelihood of a Republican takeover of Congress in 2010, Obama just as likely to be a one term President, with the Democrats setting the precedent for major legislation through reconciliation, anything they do pass could be just as easily dismantled.

Let’s hope it doesn’t get that far. Mark Levin has called for all his listeners to saturate Congress with their calls, faxes and emails. Let me add my urging to that. Everyone who reads this please get active. It’s our country, it’s your and your children’s freedoms. It’s the future of the free world.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

This is it. 2010 and the MID-TERM ELECTIONS are right around the corner in political terms. We need to pay VERY close attention to everything that transpires this year and we cannot for one split second take anything for granted. There are some do’s and don’ts out there that we should keep foremost in our minds as the swelling tsunami of the American Conservative movement prepares to sweep the ENEMIES of our REPUBLIC from in front of us.

DO be active in your local Republican organizations. DO act to influence them to do the right things – the things that WIN local contests. I walked into my local Republican party headquarters last election cycle and it had all the excitement of a funeral parlor. They didn’t even have voter registration applications for their own county, but had them for a district two counties away. When I pointed out that this was just a couple more sets of hands for registrations to go through and more opportunity for them to ‘disappear’ or be mislaid in the mails the looks I got from our party representatives can only be described as NON COMPOS MENTIS. The SF Bay Area is notorious for voter shenanigans, these people just didn’t get it. My own registration had been tampered with twice in nine years.

Become activated, your enthusiasm will be infectious. DO not allow the lame stream to gin up the old Trojan horse of a third party. THERE IS NO SUCH THING. Third parties are the product of fevered minds. It was a third party of well-intentioned but sadly misinformed  Americans that brought us BILLY JEFF CLINTON, under the third party banner of Ross Perot, splitting the Republican and Independent vote.

Ross Perot

We need to champion a revitalized CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN PARTY under the leadership of SOLID conservatives who will go bare-knuckled, toe to toe with the ENEMIES of the Republic and not give an inch. After all, is this not the model that the DeMarxists have taught us so well? When they snivel that they are being mistreated, all we have to do is to remind them of Nancy With-The-Smiling-Stapled-Lids having THE LOCKS CHANGED IN THE HOUSE CONFERENCE ROOMS, locking Republicans out completely.

I was listening to a statement by Mitch McConnell where he sounded like he was preparing to ‘go along and get along’ with the DeMarxist power structure in which he said he thought ‘we could work together to get things done’. Uh, Mitch, that’s NOT what the American people are telling you! We don’t WANT you to get along with that bunch of Maoists and if that is your intention leave now, for we will surely remove you and any other establishment Republican who acts or thinks like that as well.

Mitch McConnell

Conservatives are on the march. There are Conservative challenges all over the nation. One thing we need to do for SURE before 2012 is to CLOSE OUR PRIMARIES. What gave us John McCain instead of a more viable candidate was Democrat voters crossing over and voting in Republican open primary elections. The Republican leadership was so inept they allowed the opposition to choose for us. How stupid is that? Though it’s obvious now that the party had McCain preordained in a backroom deal, much like when they brought up another notorious deal-maker loser, Bob Dole.

It’s just exactly what we have to avoid this time. There are a lot of bright young Conservative leaders coming up through the ranks. There are 435 House seats up for re-election, 36 seats in the Senate. There are 37 Gubernatorial seats up for grabs. Don’t think that the DeMarxists aren’t sweating this one out. Just ask Ben Nelson.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

That may be why Dingy Harry Reid wanted to be out of town this weekend. A little tongue in cheek there. Harry is out of town down in Louisiana with Mary Landrieu, being greeted by a few thousand TEA PARTY PATRIOTS.

He and Mary are trying to extract a thousand dollars apiece from remaining loyalists at a fund raiser. Notice, Harry is NOT soliciting funds in his own state, where by the most conservative estimates he is running fully 10 points behind his challengers. In addition, voters in his home state are lining up unanimously against the OBAMA-PELOSI-REID socialist takeover, and almost certainly will invite Mr Reid to exit his office next year. Though there has been some speculation that Dingy Harry will pull a quick one and attempt to have himself replaced by his son, who is by all accounts Harry Jr. to a tee.

A US agency that oversees Medicare spending has issued a series of reports that indicate that, as opposed to the Democrat claims of savings and lower costs, the opposite has proven to be the case, according to the study’s conclusions. Republican Mitch McConnell stated that “the report confirms what we’ve long known. The Democrat plan would increase costs, raise premiums and slash Medicare”. McConnell said, “That’s not reform. This analysis speaks for itself. This bill is a sham”.

The report written by Richard Foster, the chief actuary at the centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the increase in health care spending reflected the impact of millions of newly covered people seeking medical care. The report stated that Medicare has significantly lower reimbursement rates than private insurers. Doctors, clinics and hospitals who rely heavily on Medicare patients for business, “could find it difficult to remain profitable and, absent of legislative intervention, might end their participation in the program”.

So time after time we rediscover Democrat doublespeak and duplicity. All around the country Patriot voices are raised against the takeover of our freedoms. MILLIONS OF PINK SLIPS are going out to members of Congress and as we speak, EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND petitions are being handed to members of the Senate. Do you think they might be getting the word? They had better. There is a political bloodletting shaping up in this country as has never been seen before. Keep up the good work! Keep up the pressure!

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2009

I really don't know quite what to make of this breaking news story

Gregg withdraws as commerce secretary nominee

but it certainly does not paint New England Republicans in a good light (good thing I was born in Brooklyn, ;) )

I also don;t know where this leaves us for the 2010 election in NH. Will Gregg return as a candidate, or an embarassed lame duck?

And I'm also not sure who look worse after all is said and done--Obama's incompetent vetters or Mitch McConnell's inept management of the senate minority? One hopes for the Republic's sake it will be the former, but who knows?

Since none of our so-called leaders are going to present an alternative economic recovery package, I'll do it myself.  Items are in no particular order except the order in which they came to me.

1) Slash the Corporate Income Tax Rate to 15% - The United States currently has the Second Highest Corporate Tax Rate in the World.  This puts our companies at a gigantic competitive disadvantage internationally and retards both job growth and the stock market here at home.  Cutting corporate taxes will spur a business led investment boom in the United States.

2) Make Bush Reductions in Capital Gains and Dividends Permanent - While I would love to slash these grossly counterproductive rates further, that's not feasible politically at the moment.  The next best thing would be to send a permanent signal to financial markets.

3) Abolish the Employer Half of the Payroll Tax - As liberals frequently point out, 80% of taxpayers pay more in payroll taxes than income taxes.  They deserve a big tax cut.  This will also act as a major job creation mechanism.

4) Pass Colombia, South Korea, and Panama Free Trade Agreements - This move is more symbolic than substative, however, it is crucially important.  Passing these agreements would signal to our trading partners that the United States will not turn protectionist like we did in the 1930's.

Passing the Colombia agreement would also weaken an increasingly despotic Hugo Chavez.

5) Establish a 15% flat rate on All Income - This will leave Americans with more money to spend, invest, or do whatever the heck they want to do with it.  It will also do away with the deadweight loss from tax code complexity.  Many other Countries have done this successfully.

Should this prove politically unfeasable, we should still strive to do this for everyone except the top income tax bracket.

6) Create A National Market for Medical Insurance - Rising Medical Costs have been a major economic drag for the past decade.  While the reasons for this are worthy of their own blog post, creating a national market for Medical Insurance instead of 50 separate state markets is the easiest way to lower costs.

7) Drill, Baby, Drill - In addition to harming those nice guys in Tehran, Moscow, and Caracas, increased energy production at home will create oodles of jobs.  It might even make the auto bailout a moot point.

8) Immeadiate Expensing for Business Investment - This will also create a boom in business investment.

9) Boost Defense Spending - This is a policy I support for other reasons.  That said, defense spending has a higher Keynesian Multiplier than anything President Elect Obama is proposing.

10) Abolish the Alternative Maximum Tax - This wildly unfair tax should just be abolished.  I don't care about the rationale.

11) Abolish Sarbanes/Oxley - This onerous regulation, passed during the Enron panic, drives capital and businesses overseas without preventing fraud at home.  Repeal of SarBox would ignite a stock market boom!

12) Abolish Mark to Market - This obscure accounting rule forces companies unnecessarily to lower the value of their assets relative to what they could be sold for.  This was a major factor in the credit freeze.

13) Abolish the Death Tax - Any change in tax policy that both antagonizes liberals and hurts Warren Buffet must be a good idea.

Red State is unhappy with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. (Note: I used to work in the Senate Republican Communications Center under Sen. McConnell.  Perhaps that biases me, or perhaps that gives me a unique viewpoint, but I'm trying to make an objective analysis of the landscape here)

The idea that Mitch McConnell is protecting us from the Democrats is bullcrap.  We should collectively rip off his jaw and shovel the crap back down his throat that he’s been serving us. [...] Mitch McConnell is privately screwing us just like Obama is doing to the left, but because he makes Harry Reid cry on queue, people love him.  It’s almost like Reid and Durbin know it and are happy to cry on cue if it means conservatives stay rallied to McConnell.

I really do appreciate Erick Erickson's frustration - the conflict between ideals and the politically possible is a particularly difficult tension for libertarians -  but Sen. McConnell is not the problem. The problem is a Senate an inch away from a 60-Democrat majority.  There is simply no way he can stop the Democrats.  That, not McConnell's personal preferences, is the important factor right now.  Sen. McConnell can either...

• Compromise, lose and cobble together the best deal we can get (sometimes on the proximate legislation, sometimes on other potential legislation), or...
• Be righteously indignant and go down in flames. Total defeat.

So, yeah, Senate Republicans are not protecting us from bad legislation.  Against almost 60 Senate Democrats, that's what you do.  You lose. 

Senators DeMint, Coburn and some others want to fight, and that's great. We need fighters...but we need the parliamentarians, the deal-makers, too.  The fact that individual members can pick fights does not mean the entire Senate Republican caucus can do so.

If a fighter was elevated to the Republican Leader position, one of two things would happen: (a) they would be unable to hold the Republican caucus together behind a tougher ideological agenda, or (b) they would be forced to moderate to hold the caucus together.

Some hills are certainly worth dying on, but the Senate Republicans can't all die on every hill.

Yes, McConnell isn't likely to lead a Republican revolution. But nobody is right now. Leadership is almost certainly going to come from the outside.  The Republican Congress is just trying to execute the best retreat possible.

A General gets to tell the troops where to go.  A Senate Minority Leader has to ask the troops where they want to go, and figure out how to do something with the many different answers.  Mitch McConnell's job is the art of the possible...and at the moment, very little is possible.